Album Review

Dream Theater - A Dramatic Turn of EventsDream Theater – A Dramatic Turn of Events

Heroes of progressive metal Dream Theater are back with their appropriately titled 12th studio album “A Dramatic Turn of Events”. After all the recent controversy over issues with drummer Mike Portnoy the band are in the main eye of the industry; Mike Portnoy was a founding member of the band who had requested a 5 year break, the band wanted to keep going and therefore refused the request which lead to Portnoy leaving, once the band finally found a new drummer Portnoy asked to rejoin the band which was again denied. After all of that here we are with a brand new studio album which has peaked interest after the upset of Portnoy leaving the fold.

Album opener “On the Backs of Angels” sees Dream Theater take a more classic rock approach with their progressive technique as opposed to the aggressive direction which the “Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence” album took. That kind of classic rock analogy is fitting for the album as a whole, after “On the Backs of Angels” we have “Build Me Up, Break Me Down” which has become a unanimous favourite here at camp Alternative Vision, guitarist John Petrucci is one of the masters of the electric guitar as he has demonstrated throughout Dream Theater’s Illustrious career and once again some of these riffs and solos are nothing more than sheer perfection.

The sheer range of different material on here is terrific and shows huge growth within the band in a sense of song writing. There are heavy tracks (“On The Backs of Angels”, “Lost Not Forgotten”, “Bridges in the Sky”), there are really soft songs (“This is the Life”, “Far From Heaven”, “Beneath The Surface”) and songs that fit comfortably in the middle (“Breaking All Illusions”, “Outcry”, “Build Me Up, Break Me Down”) which gives a perfectly balanced 9 track record. Once again it’s Dream Theater so most of the tracks are pretty long in duration; 4 tracks are over 10 minutes long the longest being 12:26 and the shortest being 3:56.

I prefer this album to the previous “Black Clouds & Silver Linings” because there are more songs on here at shorter durations which is more up my street and the range in material shuffled around gives for a much superior listen. The effects are terrifically blended in with the great riffs and drum lines, vocalist James LaBrie also really shows off his talents here matching his distinctive voice to a wider variety of styles which gives it all an edge over previous work. Who needs Portnoy eh? This album along with a lot of recent events says nobody.

4.5/5

Review by James Webb

 Band Members

John Petrucci
John Myung
James LaBrie
Jordan Rudess
Mike Mangini
 Track Listing
1. On the Backs of Angels
2. Build Me Up, Break Me Down
3. Lost Not Forgotten
4. This Is the Life
5. Bridges in the Sky
6. Outcry
7. Far from Heaven
8. Breaking All Illusions
9. Beneath the Surface
 Band Related Links
Dream Theater MySpace
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?