And for all those of you still complaining about DT not showing any emotion or feel in their music, a cursory listen of the soulful “The Best Of Times” should be enough to change your mind. Yeah, he’s not one of the best vocalists in prog metal, (atleast not anymore) but hey, he gets the job done pretty well being comfortable in his skin, so that’s that. He’s right in his comfort zone here and it definitely shows along with some amazing dual vocal harmonies with Portnoy. That was an irritating aspect of their previous albums that has thankfully been done away with here. ![]() Superb, just superb.Īlthough quite a few people haven’t touched upon this aspect much, I’ll say it anyway: Labrie just proved here that he sounds a heck of a lot better when he sticks to his high mid-range vocals while avoiding any high-pitched vocal parts. With peaks and valleys aplenty stretching to a silky gorgeous lead guitar break after the 10th minute to close with a lovely acoustic strumming section, this closer is everything that is good about both DT and prog metal as a whole. Hard to believe that the same type of vocals sounded awkwardly out of place and ill-fitting in Train Of Thought and Six Degrees… but here, it works pretty damn well and how! “The Count Of Tuscany” is a goddamn clinic in tasteful guitarwork and melodic mastery all through the way along with Labrie weaving some intricate vocal patterns over the furious guitar/keyboard interplay making for quite the rollercoaster ride. This song along with “A Rite Of Passage” (a super-catchy chorus with a blistering solo) makes good use of rapping/heavy vocals that make the heavy parts sound heavier than otherwise, along with some mean groove/thrash riffs pushing the pedal all the way up to 11. “A Nightmare To Remember” is one heck of an opening track with heavy chugs leading to a beautiful clean-picked mid section that is quite memorable. (Train Of Thought anyone?) Additionally, I’ve leave you to figure out which riffs of their previous songs they’ve tastefully incorporated into this epic, especially the ending riff! Trust me, it’s actually quite fun to figure it out. ![]() One of the very few songs where DT have been at their heaviest and actually succeeded in pulling it off well. The second half of the song goes into clean picking mode with LaBrie pulling off some of his best and most heartfelt vocal lines. ![]() Honestly, this song is everything that “The Dark Eternal Night” tried to be but failed badly. Surprisingly we get a bit of a middle-eastern influence in the intro of “The Shattered Fortress” leading to a tasty metal fest of heavy riffs and a keyboard/guitar shred fest. The soothing ballad “Wither” with the melancholic intro reminds me of a more concise and soaring version of “The Ministry Of Lost Souls” from their previous album Systematic Chaos. Both these two drawbacks have been completely reigned in here and the stunning results are plain and clear for all of us to see. I mean at first glance, who would think that six songs stretching over an hour long would end up being a good album? But hey, being Dream Theater, the guys just love their long songs, which is really not that big of a problem as long as they keep the wanking around to a minimum without forcing the songwriting process. Finally, a Dream Theater album where most of the overwhelming amount of praise directed towards it is well deserved! Yes, being a casual fan of the band, I’m sure a lot of you would be surprised to hear this, but it’s true.
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