  
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
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