Produced by Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci
Released: 2009
A couple of weeks back, I made a post on the UM forums in which I said that Dream Theater is one of the most over-rated bands in history. This band's fans are amongst the most rabid in music--reviews of their albums on Metal Archives waffle on about John's guitar solos and Jordan's keyboard melodies for about as long as some of the songs they're in, and that's usually a pretty long time--so even though I was half-joking, I expected to get flamed like a rotisserie chicken. Instead, almost everyone who replied agreed! It was almost as if I'd finally said what everyone had merely been thinking all these years. And before a dozen Portnoy fanbois turn up here and make stupid anonymous posts like the The Boy Will Drown fan a few weeks back (seriously dude, they're fucking awful), I actually like DT. I just don't believe they are the be-all and end-all of modern music.
Black Clouds and Silver Linings proves this once again. Let's face it, any album with a song as bland and uninspiring as "Wither" on it is hardly a masterpiece, and the shameless cutting and pasting of regurgitated elements from past works makes Gore Obsessed by Cannibal Corpse sound vital and fresh by comparison. OK, it's not that bad, but was it really necessary to make "The Shattered Fortress" fit into the Twelve Step Suite by cramming it with riffs and themes from all the other parts? It's almost as if they (Portnoy and Petrucci at least) stood back afterwards, looked at each other smugly and said, "Check out what we just did! Aren't we just the cleverest fuckers in metal?" And the thing is that Black Clouds and Silver Linings isn't even that bad, it's just that for a band whose reputation was built on invention and originality, this isn't anything remarkably different from the last few albums. Better, perhaps, but not significantly different, and above all else, Dream Theater is supposed to be a progressive band.
Still, Black Clouds and Silver Linings has plenty of good things, and this review so far has probably made it sound far worse than it really is. First of all, the songs are truly epic in scope, with only two coming in at under 12 minutes in length, and resplendent with the band's trademark virtuoso playing and grandiose arrangements. "A Nightmare to Remember" is DT at their heaviest and most dynamic. Portnoy's growling vocals are jarring and try-hard, but vocals have always been the weakest link on this band's albums; LaBrie's efforts this time are, however, far from terrible. "The Best of Times", Portnoy's tribute to his late father, has some truly poignant moments and very finely crafted classical sections highlighted by some fantastic work from Rudess and the violin work of Jerry Goodman. The album's true high point however is "The Count of Tuscany", a staggering nineteen minute-long saga which seems to have drawn lyrical inspiration from Poe's "A Cask of Amontillado". The epic build-up in reminiscent of no one more than Rush. Petrucci does some of his best work on this track (and that's saying a lot) and the twists and turns into the extended ambient section and the triumphant finale where the guitarist out-does himself is among Dream Theater's finest achievements. "The Count of Tuscany" is Dream Theater at their very best, and is enough reason to get this album in itself.
Black Clouds and Silver Linings definitely shows how magnificent a band Dream Theater can be when they really put their minds to it, but it's inconsistent and at least two of the songs--the aforementioned "Wither" and the generic "A Rite of Passage"--could have been left off without anyone noticing. The triple CD version features an album of covers and another CD of "instrumental mixes" which is pointless beyond imagination and the "deluxe" boxed edition also includes a double vinyl version, a lithograph of the album artwork, a mouse pad (!) and yet another remixed version of the album, as if it was needed. Still, this is Dream Theater we're talking about, so this level of overkill is more than expected.
- A Nightmare to Remember
- A Rite of Passage
- Wither
- The Shattered Fortress
- The Best of Times
- The Count of Tuscany
Rating: 83%
Yo, just to clarify a couple of points, not to flame your review lest Liam slam me and my entire website again, The Count of Tuscany is about an incident that happened to Petrucci while in Tuscany a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the "other remixed version of the album" on the delux thing, I think you're referring to the producer thing, which is stem mixes of the album so fans can do their own re-mixes. A few bands have done it recently.
Good review though, it seems to be the thoughts of a lot of people with this one. I like the album, but I'm sure that surprises nobody.
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I like it as an album from the 2 or 3 listens I've given it so far, but like you said, it's not really doing anything amazingly new.
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