dream theater's influences

[lumpy33]

thanks, everyone.  i definitely forgot about the opening lick and chord progression in the best of times sounding very similar to the spirit of radio.  i also love the great debate and never heard any tool before, but now that it's been mentioned i guess i can kind of see where a comparison would be made.  i hear U2 in i walk beside you now that it's been said - and not surprising that that's one of my least favorite d.t. tunes, as i don't like U2.  i don't know muse from a hole in the wall, so i'm lost there.  and as for the metallica/as i am debate, i can see that opening riff as being black albumish, but beyond that it's all dream theater.

and so i see it with most all of their tunes - aside from a few blatant tips of the hat.  they're musicians who are influenced by their surroundings (current music trends) and the bands they grew up listening to.  (floyd, genesis, etc.)  in the end, they are decidedly dream theater, and they do their craft better than anyone else.

[BlobVanDam]

And I'm a big enough Metallica fan to recognize that many of the Metallica accusations (which is one of the most mentioned bands for criticizing DT sounding like other bands) are not even in the ballpark. Not to take a dig at anyone here, but the thought of As I Am or ANTR sounding anything like Metallica is ridiculous to me. You would think from the way people talk sometimes that modern DT are literally nothing but blatantly copying Muse and Metallica. And I repeat my point that it is over-exaggerated.

I'll give you ANTR...but good god how can someone listen to As I Am and not hear Metallica? It's practically a love letter to the Black Album.

There is almost zero similarity at all to me. The slower tempo of the song is more like TBA than any previous Metallica album, but the similarities end there.
Hetfield's vocal melodies always center around the root note and don't deviate far from there, even on TBA where his vocal melodies are a bit more melodic. The vocal melodies in As I Am have much more range, and mix up the scale/mode, which Metallica don't really do at all.
Then there's the prechorus that takes it down in intensity with the drum stick hits, and the soft spoken vocals, and the clean guitar. Metallica's pre-choruses are always just the same riff shifted up to F# with little change in intensity or style.
The main riff does use a flattened 5th and flattened 2nd, both of which I'd consider common Metallica traits, so maybe there's a very slight similarity in the riff, but with the downtuning, it doesn't have that Metallica sound at all.

Aside from "heavy", there is no part of As I Am that contains any Metallica specific traits, unlike a song like Constant Motion where I can pinpoint specific songs that certain elements are taken directly from. The Black Album is perhaps my favourite Metallica album, and I've never heard any similarity with As I Am.

[i am fabio]

I definately hear similarities. Just in sound at least. Im talkin about As I Am.

[m0hawk]

Can anyone point out the Blackened = This Dying Soul similarity? I can't hear the similarity.

P.s. Blackened gives me quite the headache. There's not much to lik eabout this song 

[BlobVanDam]

Can anyone point out the Blackened = This Dying Soul similarity? I can't hear the similarity.

P.s. Blackened gives me quite the headache. There's not much to lik eabout this song 

From 7:16 onwards is like the first verse from Blackened, "Blackened in the end.....".