Dream Theater: Metropolis PT2 Scenes From A Memory review
Dream Theater is one of the most technically gifted bands I’ve ever seen and this musical showpiece is littered with technical wizardry that will astound you. How anyone could have sat down and worked out some of those intricate musical tangents is a mystery to me. Better still, to have achieved all that, while never straying from a groove and not being self indulgent, is no mean feat.
Dream Theater, are not particularly well known in England. They are an American band, which explains the incorrect spelling of the word theatre. This album is an amazing display of progressive rock and is my personal favourite of theirs. It may not grab you instantly, it’s taken me about five listens to realise that it is the best piece of music I have heard in many, many years.
If you can imagine a band with the technical skills of Yes, mix in some Pink Floyd, Rush and Metallica. Then add dashes of shameless American anthem rock and you’ve got an idea of their sound. They have had criticism for ripping off other bands, especially Pink Floyd. I can hear several blatant rip-offs from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” and “Dark Side Of The Moon” in this album but I’ll be generous and call it heavy inspiration instead.
My only criticism is that they can’t seem to decide exactly what kind of band they want to be and can flit from heavy metal to a Bon Jovi type rock faster than you can do a half cycle of head banging. Some of their albums are particularly guilty of this but Metropolis PT2: Scenes from a memory, manages to get the balance just about perfect for my tastes.
Dream Theater will take you on a musical journey which delves into reincarnation with this seamless concept album where each track merges into a tightly woven whole. Occasional speech and sound effects enhance the on-going tale and the sporadic lapse into Pink Floyd’s The Wall mode is forgivable.
The complicated tale involving murder is told from the first person perspective and is begun with a mood setting hypnotist’s voice set to the tick, tick, tick of a hypnotic metronome.
“Close your eyes and begin to relax, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Concentrate on your breathing. With each breath, you become more relaxed. Imagine a brilliant white light above you, focusing on this light as it flows through your body. Allow yourself to drift off as you fall deeper and deeper into a more relaxed state of mind…”
The hypnotist continues, and as his soft assuring - yet commanding voice - takes the protagonist back to a previous life. The music takes over just at a moment carefully calculated to prevent our own potential submersion at his skilful hands.
The scene is set, the first steps taken, and a gentle start to a long and incident packed journey has begun. It’s almost ten minutes before you’ll hear any vocals so my personal musical taste is indulged with numerous several minute forays into relentless musical excursions.
Prepare yourself for a roller coaster ride. Expect excitement, expect to be stimulated, lulled, then stimulated, then overawed by the shear tenacity that must have gone into working some of that stuff out. If you are a musician, expect to be humbled.
This concept album is a cauldron of all that has gone before. Dream Theater have thrown the lot into the pot and stirred with a very big stick. You will hear many bands in this album but this is no criticism. You’ll find yourself recognising Led Zepelin, Rush, Yes, Pink Floyd, Bon Jovi, Europe, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Uriah Heap, Metallica, Lenny White and the Astral pirates and many more.
What they have managed to create is a miracle of amalgamation and if you like any of these bands then this album will fit you as snugly as your favourite underpants. Dream Theater have taken over where these groups left off. They’ve navigated into places they never reached on their own and come up with an album that epitomises them all yet still offers something new.
Written by Andy(ArT)Trigg on April 14th, 2008 with
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