Dream Theater’s 12th studio album is simply called Dream Theater. Normally a self titled album wouldn’t raise an eyebrow from me, but one of the many things DT are known for are their creative titles. From their 1st album When Dream and Day Unite to their 2011 release A Dramatic Turn of Events, waiting to find out what the album title is, has always been part of the fun for Dream theater fans.
John Petrucci explained the simple title to me last week via Spype. “We did that for a few different reasons, one of them is that obviously 12 albums in, doing that makes a statement in it’s self. When we went in to do this album we talked about making a really strong, confident, bold album that would encompass everything that we are about.”
“The other thing was that we wanted to keep it a bit of a mystery, not really give away what was inside or set up and preconceived notions as to the direction,
make it more like, even the album cover, more like a movie poster, like Batman; you see the wings but, what is it about? it creates excitement.”
Dream Theater have always been a cinematic band, their music tells stories, takes you places, often makes you fell like your traveling, even when you know you are standing still and the new album may be their best one yet at creating settings and moods. Right from the opening song “False Awakening” it feels like a massive event is taking place, then you are slammed into “Enemy inside” with John’s giant metal guitar riffs, but as you can hear in this part of my Chop Shop interview, DT’s signature sound does not stop at guitar riffs…
Admittedly, Dream Theater’s music isn’t for everyone, but this time around their complex music seems a bit easier to digest. I’m going to mark that down as growth, and suggest that this is one of the bands top 3 albums of their career to date.
- Steve Black