Dream Theater - Train of Thought

Where music is concerned, there is one level where the bottom feeders hang out, then another level where most of the music-savvy public is, knowing the month when the new Michelle Branch album is coming out, or when R.E.M. is coming to town. Then there is another level, where people cry over the Promise Ring and dance to Yo-Yo-Ma. They’ll talk about Frank Zappa as if he’s Christ and Zao as if they’re common knowledge. That is the level that Dream Theater exists at: the super-music-intelligent freaks that go to bed with progressive bluegrass swimming through their heads. It’s a place I am proud to call home, and thankfully I am in good company.

Dream Theater has been around since the late 80s, providing excellent prog. metal to their pretty small constituency of fans. During that time they’ve gone through some lineup changes, including three keyboard players, and a little bit of an identity crisis with the almost-not-metal Falling Into Infinity. They fixed their focus with their next two albums, however, and in 2003 they delivered the crushing and visceral statement Train of Thought, an 80 minute disc that is only seven tracks long. One song is just three minutes long, but it’s really just an intro to the next track. Other than that, only the lead-off single “As I Am” is under ten minutes long. This is musical decadence at its very finest.

With the exception of “As I Am,” which takes a defiant stance of nonconformity, all the songs are vulnerable and naked, about such things as alcoholism, child abuse, and religious intolerance. It seems the emotional colors of their recent albums have finally turned to black with this. On Falling Into Infinity it was pain, on Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence it was confusion, and Train of Thought seems to have anger as its centerpiece. The tone seems unusually vengeful for Dream Theater, and sometimes that serves them well and sometimes not. The John Petrucci-penned numbers seem to flow better and more consistently, while the ones written by Mike Portnoy just seem to be the spewings of a raging child, both lyrically and musically.

As is expected with Dream Theater, the album has enough guitar heroics to have even the most experienced guitarists first scratching their heads and then throwing their Train of Thought tab books up against the wall. The transcribers probably had a similar reaction. All the members of the band turn in simply head-spinning performances, with more twists and turns than a schizophrenic fish with one fin. Despite their almost-forty age and having kids to worry about, Dream Theater hasn’t lost any of their edge or grit, and their musical proficiency only seems to be getting stronger. It makes this reviewer wonder in awe what Dream Theater will be like in ten years; or twenty.

Prime Cuts:
Stream of Consciousness
As I Am
Endless Sacrifice

22 Rating: 14