TPOF's Overly Wordy Top 50

[Lucien]

At a rate of one song a day, this list will go on for almost two months.

[The Presence of Frenemies]

Yeah, gonna try to speed it up in the coming days. Probably will do three a day, starting later tonight.

[The Presence of Frenemies]

Alright, here's three more! Gonna make for a heck of a long post, haha.

#42: Constant Motion

Systematic Chaos gets a lot of hate, but I'm not among its detractors. Of the album's songs, Constant Motion probably isn't among the most disliked (my gut reaction is that Prophets of War, The Ministry of Lost Souls, and The Dark Eternal Night are probably the lowest-rated tracks on the disc here on DTF), but few place it among the album's highlights, either. Still, I think the track is a good example of DT being accessible without abandoning their strengths.

Each album, there's a song like this, the "midstream DT" track that isn't overly ambitious and proggy, but also isn't noticeably stripped down. Octavarium had Panic Attack, SC had Constant Motion, BC&SL had A Rite of Passage, and even ADTOE had On The Backs of Angels. Constant Motion is one of the better-executed songs in this vein, though. It propels forward with a lot of energy, it has a hooky chorus (with some pretty nice vocals from both James and Mike), and the soloing is pretty solid too (though I wish JP had a riff that was a bit more powerful to lay that awesome solo over). And there's nothing out of place that really robs the song of its momentum. Nothing overly spectacular, but that's kind of the point--the song plays it down the middle and is accessible but not particularly challenging. It's well-executed for what it is, and that puts it in the upper portion of the middle layer of DT songs.

#41.) On The Backs of Angels

Here's another one. A lot of what I said about Constant Motion also applies here, and that's largely why they're right next to each other on my list--they're well-executed songs that fill the same role on the albums they're on. On The Backs of Angels doesn't have the same energy that Constant Motion does, which sometimes leaves this lingering feeling that it could be a better song than it is. At the same time, though, On The Backs of Angels also holds the important place of being the first song we heard in the post-Portnoy era, the one that reassured us DT was still DT (and also reassured some that they were returning to a pre-ToT DT, not that I was in the group that wished for that to happen). Further, it has a more grandiose presentation that Constant Motion does, which makes its best moments (the band kicking in with the big choir sound, and the piano solo) stand out a bit more. I could easily flip the two songs on the list.

#40.) Endless Sacrifice

The first DT album I really got into was Train of Thought, and thus Endless Sacrifice was one of the first songs I really got addicted to. I love the heavy stuff, and this song has a lot of it. Tradeoff solos and a lot of heavy riffing, but also some progressive elements with the arrangement and the slow build of the verses.

It hasn't aged as well as the other two ToT songs I went nuts about in early '07 when I discovered the band, mostly because as I went through the rest of the discography, I realized how unremarkable it was in the grand scope of DT's works. It's nowhere near the longest song, or the heaviest, or the proggiest, or the catchiest, or the most technical. The arrangement is better than, say, Outcry's, though again, there's a lot of very uncompelling and unneeded riffing before the solos, which themselves are a bit on the wanky, unrelated-to-the-song side. JR's break before the solos also seems very out of place and calls a lot of attention to itself, though the bit is actually pretty cool, so I can excuse it. And like Outcry, the long instrumental section puts the listener back down in an unfamiliar (but cool) place, which gives it more of a two-songs-pasted-together feel than there should be.

It's a better song than Outcry because it doesn't lose momentum as badly, but the highlights of the song aren't particularly high, and it's also not one of James' better performances (I'd say his vocal work on Train of Thought is probably his weakest with DT, though I still love the album anyway). It actually is a pretty damn great song, but Dream Theater is Dream Theater, and they're so great that they made 39 other songs I like better.

[BlobVanDam]

CM is easily my favourite of the bunch. Cool song. OTBOA is ok but very sterile imo, and Endless Sacrifice hasn't aged well for me either. My least favourite on ToT.

Kinda what I'd expect at these positions.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

I love Constant Motion, especially the drum break in the middle, before the solo.

On The Backs Of Angels is quite good, not one of my favorites, though.

Endless Sacrifice is probably my second favorite of Train Of Thought.

So, good choices! 

[iamtheeviltwin]

CM does not belong in any top 50...easily one of the worst DT songs that is not from WDADU.

Love the other two though.  Endless Sacrifice has some great lyrical depth on top of the rocking tune.

[nicmos]

Constant Motion is a great fun song.  Doesn't break any ground, may sound a bit too much like a Metallica ape for some, but I think it's great.  This  sounds about right for it.  It sounds like they're having fun playing it more than just about any song in DT's catalog.

OTBOA- probably about where I'd put it.  solid song, and I always enjoy listening to it, but I don't think of it as one of those DT songs that I need to cue up.

Endless Sacrifice-  The end sure is good, but it's hard to sit through the first half of the song.  I would agree that it's my least fav off TOT.

[The Presence of Frenemies]

Three more:

#39.) Lie

Yep, Lie above the Mirror (though not by much). Pretty similar songs, as one might expect given their common origin--heavy riffing with James providing powerful, gritty vocals. Lie's melodies and overall arrangement are a bit weaker, and it doesn't have the sheer force of The Mirror, but it does have some crazy soloing from JP that gives the song more dynamism. That makes it just slightly more enjoyable than The Mirror for me.

#38.) Breaking All Illusions

I'm not a big fan of A Dramatic Turn of Events in general. There are two big weaknesses with it for my taste. First, the production is poor. Since Live at Luna Park hasn't been released yet, we can't even play the "But the live version captures the feel of the song so much better!" game--honestly, I hope that the DVD improves my feelings on some of these songs. But the song is supposed to be epic-sounding, and the production renders it flatter than it needs to be to achieve that goal. The chorus, in particular, just doesn't quite gel for me (what's with the weird hihat?).

Second, a lot of ADTOE is quite samey--the "epics" of Bridges In The Sky, Outcry, and Breaking All Illusions all are about 11 minutes or so, with fairly long intros, a couple verses and choruses, very long proggy instrumental sections, and then some brief vocal bits and a short outro. Add ten-minute Lost Not Forgotten in there and you have four songs with that same basic outline, which I think makes them start to blend together and hurts how unique each comes across.

The song is good; it's probably the best-arranged of the four long tracks on ADTOE. But I just don't see the great song that a lot of other people see. There are a lot of good parts (Myung's bass in the intro, the "Live in the moment..." section, JPs solo), but the whole thing just seems so safe and calculated. Part of that is the aforementioned production issues failing to push the song to the "next level," but part of it is also the song failing to quite cohere into the latter-day masterpiece it so wants to be. That ambition is a little too palpable in the song, I think--not to get all Thiago-y, but the band seems so intent on sticking to a formula that the parts themselves seem more calculated than inspired. Yes, it calls back to the glory days of Images and Words, but it merely echoes them rather than transcending them. The result is a song that does hold attention for its twelve-minute-plus runtime with a lot of good parts and no real missteps, but never quite takes that step into true greatness in any one of those sections because the band seems more focused on what not to do than what to do. And so it goes here on my list--an above-average DT song, but one that doesn't quite stack up with many of their previous epics. Hopefully they'll slay it on LALP and I'll reconsider.

#37.) Forsaken

Another short, well-written track that distills DT to a very basic formula without seeming too stripped-down. Nice vocal work from James in this one that proved, along with Constant Motion and In The Presence of Enemies, that he was regaining an edge to his voice on heavier tracks (after Octavarium's vocals were mostly quite clean and the preceding Train of Thought saw James (and sometimes Jordan) struggle to fit in to the newfound heaviness of JP and the rhythm section. JP provides tasteful lead work both in the main solo and leading up to the chorus and Jordan adds nice backing. The song is about as long as Wither, but it has several more interesting things going on without losing any coherence, which places it 11 spots above Wither on my list.

[?]

Forsaken is one of the few songs on SC I actually like I prefer The Mirror to Lie, but ranking Lie higher isn't controversial to me, because it has awesome lyrics (come at me!) and the soloing is kickass, as you mentioned.

[The Presence of Frenemies]

Forsaken is one of the few songs on SC I actually like I prefer The Mirror to Lie, but ranking Lie higher isn't controversial to me, because it has awesome lyrics (come at me!) and the soloing is kickass, as you mentioned.

Agreed. I don't care much about lyrics, but the lyrical flow of Lie does stand out to me.

[The Presence of Frenemies]

Five more coming tomorrow!

[The Presence of Frenemies]

#36.) Bridges In The Sky

Another ADTOE epic that doesn't quite add up to the sum of its parts. Again, there's a lot of good stuff here--the intro is a welcome departure from the sameness of the album (and I'll never say no to a choir part), the vocals are great and the melodies are well-written, with the verses and choruses boasting nice atmospherics, and there's nothing too out-of-place in the instrumental section.

However, there are a few problems. JP goes for a lot of heavy riffing in the song, but the production renders his tone unusually muddy, and the riffs aren't really memorable anyway, so the music doesn't quite get the rockin' momentum it's aiming to gather. The instrumental section isn't as annoying as Outcry's--in fact, it isn't annoying at all. But there also isn't anything all that memorable either--JPs solo kind of enters out of nowhere and doesn't leave an impression, and while Jordan's continuum bit shows a lot of promise, he abandons it after a mere sixteen notes. The song's general structural similarity to LNF, Outcry, and BAI also makes it blend together with those songs--note how BITS is just above BAI and only a few spots above Outcry. A good song--one of the best on the album--but a song that lacks those one or two great elements that take it from above-average to a classic.

#35.) Trial of Tears

Another song that benefits a lot from my recent reappraisal of FII. In a lot of ways, it has the same feel as BAI--a midtempo epic that flirts with both metallic and atmospheric textures but never quite plunges into either fully. There are some really cool parts, most notably the downshift into "The Wasteland" and the solos. The verses of the song are a bit aimless and dawdly, though, as the song doesn't really start to go anywhere for awhile. That doesn't sink the song or anything, because there's nothing all that bad--a staple of the pre-Jordan era was that, while the band took a lot of musical detours, nothing quite came out of left field--but among DT's epics, Trail of Tears makes you work a bit harder than most to get to its greatness, and the payoff isn't quite as high as a lot of the other songs.

Overall, the song simultaneously shows that a) DT hadn't lost their proggy edge on FII and b) despite a), they weren't always quite sure what they were going for, teetering on the edges of their stylistic components without really taking full advantage of them. It certainly didn't attain the heights of Learning To Live from two albums prior. But you could certainly see the band that wrote Learning To Live was still there--one that would come back full force to write some true classics on SFAM just two years later.

#34.) Lines In The Sand

As with the ADTOE epics, I find it tough to separate Trial of Tears and Lines In The Sand. You can say a lot of the same things about both songs--they feature excellent extended solos and have a couple of interesting vocal bits and riffs, but there's also a lot of fairly middle-of-the-road sections (particularly in the verses) that seem to just adequately fill space rather than really being compelling. Both songs also have a couple of vocal sections that show the wear on James' voice post-accident and thus aren't quite as climactic as they were written to be.

#33.) Blind Faith

And here's another one. You could stick Blind Faith on FII and a lot of it would fit right in. The verses are on the generic side, and while the chorus tries for a big hook, there's something about it that's never quite gelled for me.

What elevates this song above some of the other epics is a fantastic instrumental section that features great soloing from both JR and JP, as well as some fantastic riffing. It's a truly gorgeous section and really pulls the song from just a generic middle-of-the-pack DT tune to one of their more memorable mid-career songs.

#32.) This Is The Life

Here's an ADTOE song that I think works as well as it's intended to. The extended ballad format benefits a lot from James' return to form on ADTOE, and his vocals make the final chorus a rousing climax. JP adds a pretty good solo and some well-executed clean and rhythm parts, and Jordan gives the song room to breathe. It was also nice to hear the band try a different type of song on ADTOE--I can't recall DT doing a mid-length ballad, really. Another Day, Anna Lee, The Silent Man, One Last Time, and Wither are short, and The Best of Times, The Ministry of Lost Souls, etc. are really long. Am I forgetting something? In any case, the template/arrangement for This Is The Life isn't one that's been delved into excessively, which makes it sound fresher and more unique than most of the rest of ADTOE. The band executes it well, and this is also a song that isn't marred by the album's generally substandard production. It's one of the highlights of the album for me.

[Ruba]

The songs in the middle are great, I rank them all higher. BITS is good too, it made my top 50 by a hair.

I have a feeling that ITPOE might pop up somewhere on this list.

[?]

I rank all of those higher, except TITL.

[Scorpion]

The middle three should be at least 30 places higher, all are Top 10 songs for me, and ToT is my favourite DT song of all time.

[nicmos]

The first, third, and fourth should be at least 20 places higher.

Trial of Tears is  probably about where it should be.  But it's criminal that you have Lines in the Sand so low.  Lines in the Sand in particular has an excellent climax, one of DT's best.  The "Centers our perspective" and "mysteries we nurture" guitar parts in the last verse are orgasmic.  So it is strange that you would say it doesn't.

[Scorpion]

The first, third, and fourth should be at least 20 places higher.

Trial of Tears is  probably about where it should be.  But it's criminal that you have Lines in the Sand so low.  Lines in the Sand in particular has an excellent climax, one of DT's best.  The "Centers our perspective" and "mysteries we nurture" guitar parts in the last verse are orgasmic.  So it is strange that you would say it doesn't.

What? I included LITS in the group that should be higher. It's a Top 5 song for me as well, I love every second of it. I just love TOT more.

[nicmos]

Sorry Scorp.  was referring to OP.  should have made that clearer.

[Destiny Of Chaos]

Please try to finish this by July 4th. If you are busy and would like to put it on hold so that someone else can start their list, please let me know.

[The Presence of Frenemies]

Please try to finish this by July 4th. If you are busy and would like to put it on hold so that someone else can start their list, please let me know.

Was just on vacation. Back now; will make sure to finish in time.

[The Presence of Frenemies]

#31.) Finally Free

This song gets knocked down a bit by the SFAM plot getting a bit too overt, so it always unsettles me a bit with that. It's probably a Top 20 song otherwise, because it really is gorgeous. The main chord progression is tremendous, and the vocal melodies rank among DT's best, very well performed by James. And it's got the awesome live drum solo ending from LSFNY, which is really the definitive version of the song for me--one of maybe half a dozen DT songs whose definitive version is a live one (well, maybe a bit more when you consider the WDADU stuff redone with in-his-prime James).

Definitely a song with a lot of great stuff, but not a fan of all the plot sound effects and what not. Not really a big fan of the SFAM plot in general, especially that part. Musically fantastic though. On some days I'd probably push this higher.

#30.) The Root of All Evil

The second-best song in the 12SS, and the most compact of the bunch. While the other trio of metal songs in the suite show clear masterwork ambition, The Root of All Evil is more of just an energetic mid-tier DT song. It's got some cool riffing, Mike's drums give the song a lot of space to breathe, and James does a nice job balancing aggression with melodicism to fit the different parts of the song. The ending is also really beautiful and satisfying--I love when Jordan goes to the piano. This is definitely a song that starts strong and ends stronger.

This song loses some points in the middle, though. Jordan's keyboard break has always struck me as very out of place. The best word I can describe it as--both in terms of the actual notes and the tone--is "bubbly" which contrasts with the energy, aggression, and beauty of the rest of the song. JP's solo is okay, but it comes off a bit scattershot, and it might be the worst-mixed JP solo since When Dream And Day Unite, as the lower runs are barely audible. Collectively, it's a short enough section to not detract too much, and the song regains momentum at the end, but those elements do make it more of an above-average DT song than a classic (I'd say the "classics" start around 25 on my list, for what it's worth).

#29.) Anna Lee

Depending who you ask, Anna Lee is either one of DT's worst songs or one of DT's most underrated songs. You can count me in the latter category. This was really the one song from FII that I always really liked from the first time I heard it (though it is not the highest on this list due to the soaring of another track from the album).

Superficially, it might come off as another fairly short, fairly (well, loosely) poppy song from an album that had too many of them. But while Hollow Years always felt misguided and Burning My Soul and You Not Me always felt (and, if you believe Mike, quite palpably were) creatively stifled, Anna Lee has a very easy, authentic feel to it, even though it doesn't really sound like anything the band has done before or since (perhaps Wither is somewhat comparable, though that song feels like a more calculated interlude than Anna Lee due to the number/length of tracks on their respective albums).

Rather than fighting James' post-accident limitations, the song really plays to the strengths he retained, and it really centers on the beautiful melodies and chord progressions. Nice lyrics, too, which isn't the sort of thing I normally notice, but stands out here. JP's solo is tasteful and continues to push the song forward, as it builds momentum throughout. Derek, Mike, and JM also turn in really nice performances without doing anything especially flashy. Ultimately, the song "is what it is" and lacks the grandiose bombast that can make DT so unparalleled when it clicks, but it sure is a fantastic piece of music in its own right. Stuff like this is what makes DT so great--each of their songs can adopt a remarkably different character from not only the album that surrounds it, but the entire DT catalog, and yet still fit with the band's sound and vision.

#28.) A Nightmare To Remember

Here comes the first of two straight quite controversial explanations. Unlike the one that will follow, A Nightmare To Remember is viewed as a pretty solid song here on DTF, with most finding the middle section before the solos to be its climax, taking issue with Mike's growling solo, and finding everything else to be fairly standard-issue solid DT.

I'll agree that--and mind you, the following is just how the song strikes me, not intended as some invalidation of the way it strikes others--a lot of it is fairly middle-of-the-road modern DT writing. In fact, you can draw some parallels with The Root of All Evil, which ranks just below it on my list--the song opens its album, starting with sound effects of some sort before bursting into a big riff with a lot of energy and going from there. I think ANTR gets off to a bit of a better start than TROAE does--the riff is a bit more compelling, James is a bit edgier, Mike seems more energized, and then JP can't even wait a full verse before he unleashes a quick facemelting solo. Another verse continues to build the energy into a huge downshift into the chorus, which features my favorite John Petrucci backing vocals ever.

Then another cool riff enters, and we get another awesome verse that downshifts into a totally different, but nearly just as epic chorus with a really propulsive chord progression.

And then it all stops.

I guess, for a lot of people, this is the point where generic metal gives way to beautiful melodicism. For me, this is the point where intricate and explosive metal gives way to humdrum melodicism. It's not that I don't appreciate the softer side of DT at times--just check the song that preceded this one--but the "Beautiful Agony" section just doesn't do it for me. Neither James nor John are doing anything that grabs me, and I actually find myself just listening almost solely to the drums and keyboards in this section. Something about John's backing vocals in the section also has always sounded a bit off. It's not that it's overtly bad music or anything; I just find it to be very tedious. The melodies just don't quite click in my head, I guess.

Anyway, we then get tradeoff solos, and this is one of the few songs where I think Jordan outduels JP--John's solos are very flurry-of-notes, while Jordan manages to get some interesting patterns into a still-quite-technical first solo and absolutely slays with the continuum in the second. Jordan's solos also reveal a really excellent, propulsive guitar riff beneath them, which I think is the single most underrated thing in the song. The following lead melody/unison/buildup section is also a truly gorgeous, epic moment that regains the momentum of the song.

And then Mike growls.

You know, I get how he felt. I think his voice itself actually fits okay, and I've never been one to really fret about Mike's vocal contributions in general. The problem for me is that of all the lyrics in DT's canon, I can't think of many that are less suited to being delivered in such a fashion, which creates a lot of cognitive dissonance--dissonance that can be overlooked if you just don't think and enjoy the intensity, but also can be dwelled on if you take issue with the idea of growling in the first place. I waffle back and forth on it.

The instrumental riff section after that is nothing that adds or subtracts all that much, and then there's a final reprise of the first style of chorus (with great JP backing vox!) and the awesome keyboard lead melody outro that's mildly but not excessively disturbed by some rather poorly-executed blastbeats.

So that's my play-by-play assessment of the song. Basically, 2/3 of it is what TROAE aspired to be, and the other 1/3 doesn't really work for me, so it ends up only slightly ahead of TROAE on the list.

Wow, that's long. Sorry for the tl;dr style--but prepare for a long discussion of #27 as well.

[BlobVanDam]

All great songs.
While I don't agree with your opinion of the mid-section, I'm glad to see you appreciate the song for the strength of the heavy parts before it, which are among DT's best heavy material.

[The Presence of Frenemies]

All great songs.
While I don't agree with your opinion of the mid-section, I'm glad to see you appreciate the song for the strength of the heavy parts before it, which are among DT's best heavy material.

Agreed. And as for the middle--it's like I always say with DT parts I dislike: I'm glad it reaches other people. The band is so diverse that they're bound to miss the specific tastes of an individual here and there, and that diversity (as I said in the Anna Lee writeup) is what makes them so unique and great to me, so I hardly lose sleep over the occasional section or song that doesn't really do anything for me. There are songs (like the very next one on the list) that do a lot for me and little for many others, too. It happens.

[nicmos]

I can't say I really agree with the overall placement of these songs on your list, but... these writeups are fabulous!  They show a lot of thought went into them, and they are very entertaining to read.

Count me among the people who love the beautiful agony section of ANTR.  I'm not trying to prove anything to anyone, I just think it works great in the song and is one of their career creative highlights.

Finally Free is about where I'd put it. 

Because Anna Lee is a slower song the chord progressions really do get emphasized more, you're right about that.

[DebraKadabra]

Can't say that I agree about the placement of Anna Lee.  The others are  though.

[The Presence of Frenemies]

Haven't forgotten about this; I will have several more up later today.

[The Presence of Frenemies]

Alright, this might be the most controversial selection on the whole list. Here goes...

#27.) Build Me Up, Break Me Down

Build Me Up, Break Me Down is my favorite song on A Dramatic Turn of Events.

There, I said it.

Let's pull out the ol' I&W/ADTOE comparison here.

On The Backs of Angels -> Pull Me Under
Build Me Up, Break Me Down -> Surrounded
Lost Not Forgotten -> Take The Time
This Is The Life -> Another Day
Bridges In The Sky -> Metropolis
Outcry -> Under A Glass Moon
Far From Heaven -> Wait For Sleep
Breaking All Illusions -> Learning To Live

Now, I think the comparisons between the two albums, in terms of "ADTOE rips off I&W!!!" are overstated by some. There is little doubt, however, that the albums have largely parallel feels and structures. These are most overt in OTBOA and FFH/BAI; then, TITL and Another Day are both "non-acoustic building ballads" and LNF, BITS, and Outcry are all "fairly long proggy songs" much like TTT, Metropolis, and UAGM. It shouldn't really affect anyone's enjoyment of the album that there are a couple of strong similarities and some weaker ones, but one result of the approach DT took is that the album is excessively safe for my tastes. It seems very self-conscious, like they really aimed the songs instead of just letting things come naturally.

However, there's one big break from that. Build Me Up, Break Me Down and Surrounded have nothing in common, except that they're relatively concise songs. As a result, I always find Build Me Up, Break Me Down to be the freshest-sounding song on the album.

Not only does the song break from I&W sound, it veers into alt-metal territory DT never really has explored. A lot of the song sounds like something Disturbed would write. And the weird thing is, I don't really like Disturbed, and I love I&W, and yet this is the song I like the most.

More specifically, it's the one heavy song on the album that really locks into a groove. I feel like JP struggled to come up with memorable riffs for a lot of the album, and the flat production didn't assist in that department. For whatever reason, though, here things coalesce, a lot like they do in The Root of All Evil (the riff is a similar style). The song's pretty well-arranged, with James getting a lot of room, JR providing tasteful backing, and a nice unison solo. Mangini's drums also seem to cut through the mix a bit better in this one than others.

Also, I'm a huge fan of James' high vocals, and it was awesome to hear him do that on record for the first time in years. Really, those gritty high screams, while they've been a tour staple, have largely eluded DT records aside from the live CD and DVD from the Images tour. It was cool to hear them captured here, and that provides some welcome dynamism in a record with very safe (though well-executed vocals).

It's not the grandest artistic statement DT's ever made, but in some ways, it's actually the boldest statement on ADTOE. Because of that context, I find myself enjoying BMUBMD more than the rest of the album. I don't even really think it's necessarily the "best" song, but it jumps out as a fun and interesting experiment among a lot of solid but safe and unspectacular material.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

I like BMUBMD too, but prepare for

[Lucien]

Interesting.

[The Presence of Frenemies]

Okay, less controversial stuff.

#26.) Scarred

I like this one a lot. James is in such great form on Awake's more aggressive numbers, turning solid vocal lines into riveting ones. A lot of this song is like The Mirror, getting by on sheer aggression, tension, and atmosphere. Unlike The Mirror, though, it's an expansive epic with a lot of dynamism--there is tension, but it ebbs and flows, builds and releases.

Also, the song has some cool instrumental fireworks toward the end from both JP and Kevin, and even JM comes to the forefront with his tapping riff at the beginning of the song.

Some sections are less compelling than others, and the song does feel a bit stitched-together at times, but there's a lot of really great stuff here.

#25.) Under A Glass Moon

This was the first DT song I ever heard...which really means nothing; I just felt like mentioning it. It's not really one of the highlights of Images And Words, but then again, that album is less full of "highlights" than just start-to-finish greatness. Again, James is fantastic, though in a much cleaner, higher fashion than the Awake stuff, but his voice here lends a nice, light quality that dovetails well with the '80s-style production (which I love).

JP's guitar solo is overrated, but it's still a pretty nice one, and Kevin adds a cool solo as well. As with all of I&W, while the song is progressive and takes some unexpected turns, everything is compelling from beginning to end. Definitely a cool song, and it served as a neat introduction to the band.

#24.) Surrounded

I never really liked this one all that much until fairly recently--it always came off as a bit boring. When I discovered DT, I was so locked into metal that I assumed anything that downshifted from metallic textures wouldn't meet my approval. In the intervening seven years (wow, I can't believe it's been so long!), though, I've come to appreciate a wider range of feels, though I still am mostly a metal guy.

And so it's now quite possible for me to appreciate the beauty of Surrounded. It's a very James-centric song, as the instrumentation from all members is quite restrained, but the vocal melodies are quite challenging. He executes them with precision and flair, as is the case with his work on the entire album. The lack of a chorus makes this song progress in a very linear fashion, which I don't necessarily like a lot of the time, but works well here.

#23.) Take The Time

Like I said, Images and Words is such a uniformly great album that it's really tough for me to separate the songs from each other. You could flip these three in any order. Take The Time is certainly one of DT's catchiest songs, it's got more awesome vocals from James, great rhythm section work, and a lot of cool instrumentation with compelling riffing, leads and solos from KM, and the outro solo from JP which is always a great live moment. In fact, the cutting of the solo on the album version is kind of disappointing if you know how great the live solo is. The Live In Tokyo version of the song really exemplifies early DT--awesome, compelling, and over-the-top work from all five members of the band that coalesces into a surprisingly accessible and well-formed whole.

[?]

Those 4...

[The Presence of Frenemies]

Entering the homestretch!

#22.) Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Not an easy one to rank, just because there's so much here. I do enjoy the 42-minute epic quite a bit, but ultimately, it just doesn't measure up to DT's other mega-epics for me. Part of it is the lack of continuity. Part of it is the fact that, because every section is basically a song, any section that doesn't quite measure up gets drawn out for 5+ minutes.

Most importantly for me, though, the issue is that the last three movements/songs/pieces/whatever you want to call them are worse than the four that precede them. I don't care much for the overture, but the song does build steadily after that, with About To Crash opening on a fairly mundane if solid note, War Inside My Head and The Test That Stumped Them All pushing the band into an energetic metallic frenzy, and Goodnight Kiss offering some of John Petrucci's most poignant guitar work ever.

After that, the retreat to the lush acoustics of Solitary Shell just seems a bit flat, especially since we're now well past the twenty-minute mark. At that point, my attention span begins to dwindle unless I'm hit with something compelling, but Solitary Shell, while pleasant, doesn't really provide that. Then we get About To Crash (Reprise), which, well, reprises About To Crash in maybe a slightly more epic fashion, but not enough to really bring the song back to big life. The ending thus strikes me as a bit hollow.

Overall, it's obviously an impressive accomplishment, and the ATC-GK bit is fantastic. But it's a long, sprawling piece, and thus maintaining momentum is a huge challenge, one that the band probably didn't manage quite as well as they could have. That takes this song from being a potential pinnacle to being a mere interesting, oft-compelling experiment.

#21.) Beyond This Life

Hmm...how to approach this one? Beyond This Life is kind of weird. Obviously, the lyrics are from a different perspective than you usually hear in DT songs (or much of any songs, really). James does what he can with them, but SFAM doesn't capture him at his best in general, and the lyrical structure is probably one of the worst since When Dream And Day Unite, further marring his capabilities. The middle instrumental section is clogged up with all the Zappa stuff, which I'm personally not a fan of.

What makes this song worthy of this spot, then? A few things. While there are a lot of quirky, questionable elements, the song never quite veers over the Outcry edge and collapses under its own weight. Nothing's bad, just sometimes slightly off or a bit weird, and most of the questionable bits are followed with good stuff.

What good stuff, exactly? The light chorus, for one, which totally turns the song on its head and makes great use of both James' and John's voices. Second, the groovy keyboard solo from Jordan, the sort of work I wish he'd do more often. Third, the unison to end the instrumental section, which is just gorgeous. While John's solo is not as good as Jordan's (a rarity, in my book), he is on with his riffs for much of the song, continually injecting energy when the other members aren't quite up to snuff.

Finally, the song gets bonus points for the awesome Jordan/Mike Live At Budokan jam.

#20.) As I Am

I mentioned before with Endless Sacrifice that Train of Thought was the first DT album I got heavily involved with. It hasn't aged all that well as an album, but surprisingly, I find this song aged better than most. Why? Well, ToT at its core is all about dark, metallic bombast, which is great if you share my tastes, but can also get tiring if it misfires. Over longer song structures, the uniform crunching gets tiresome--there's only so many ways to rehash chugging rhythms, after all.

As I Am is, of course, a fairly simple song. Extended, building intro, verse, prechorus, chorus, break, verse, prechorus, chorus, break, guitar solo, drum solo, chorus, outro. But the aggression is pretty convincing on the track, JP's solo is among his best shred work, it's always cool to hear a drum solo, and there's nothing that misfires. For a pure metallic rush, it's hard to ask for more than this--compelling riffs, solos, and hooks that don't let up for seven minutes.

#19.) Afterlife

Another short one. With When Dream And Day Unite, I try to look at what the songs should be, rather than what they actually were on the album. Of course, this can be determined by listening to live versions.

I will say this for the studio version, though--it does show that Charlie Dominici was not the fish-out-of-water singer that the vast majority of the album made him out to be. He wrote his own lyrics here and contributed to those on Status Seeker, and those are the only two songs that seem to have reasonable phrasing that allows him to hold a note for more than a tenth of a second ("I am the Killing haaaaaand" excluded). Really, it's the only song on the actual album I find is more than a mere novelty.

The live versions, though, show what a monster this truly is. You can take either James' I&W tour performances, where he injects F#s and all, or the magnificent Score performance with the brilliant final chorus.

The song is short, but feels longer, with extra verses and twists and turns. And there are so many classic elements in this song. I can't think of many DT choruses backed by better riffs. JP's solo here is every bit as good as the one in Under A Glass Moon; even the first solo in the song is a big momentum-builder. And the chorus, when given its proper due by James (and even somewhat with Charlie) has a big hook that ties it all together.

#18.) The Count of Tuscany

File this with SDOIT in the "slightly disappointing but still fantastic" DT epics category. So much good stuff. The intro is tremendous, there are cool riffs everywhere, the chorus is huge (with a big assist from Mike's gritty backing vocals, of all things). Jordan manages to be fairly technical while always staying tasteful and interesting throughout the song. The acoustic section is nice, and it does build to a fairly cool ending.

Nowhere in the song do we get the big release, though. The chorus does it, I guess, but it's so fleeting and doesn't reprise anywhere near the end of the song, so it doesn't really serve as a climax except when you analyze the song in retrospect. The long, atmospheric guitar section is nice, but the song doesn't really recover from its interrupting of momentum fully, even though the parts after it are undeniably beautiful and well-executed. The song may have actually benefited if it was extended a bit more to build to an even more impressive finale, because it doesn't quite fully deliver on its considerable promise the way it's arranged.

Great performance by James, by the way. Really foreshadowed the ADTOE/tour improvements.

#17.) Fatal Tragedy

Like As I Am, a medium-length DT song that excels through some exceptional instrumental performances. It's best-known for that, anyway, but it should be noted that the first two minutes of the song are absolutely sensational. James' vocals are spot-on, the band entering is searing, and the verse that follows has to be one of the five catchiest verses in DT history. The short breaks (the choir section, the organ/guitar tradeoff) are also awesome and energetic. And then, finally, John and Jordan end the song in one of the most compelling tradeoff sections DT ever did. The chorus is a bit of a letdown because it isn't really catchier than the verses, but beyond that, this song manages to be fun, atmospheric, engaging, and technical while advancing the SFAM storyline. That's a hell of an accomplishment.

[?]

Afterlife, TCOT and Fatal Tragedy are great

[Ruba]

Afterlife and TCOT are great, don't care that much about the others.

[nicmos]

It's funny that you have Fatal Tragedy and Beyond This Life ranked so closely.  I think I will always think of them together, I don't know why but they seem so similar to me.  I think they're ranked about right.

But SDOIT outside the top 20?  I'm sorry you don't get out of it what I do.  I think Solitary Shell works great in context, and on its own is thoroughly enjoyable and somewhat unique within DT's work.  Not just gimmicky smooth jazz good, but genuinely good.  Other than the overture that takes a while to pick up steam, I don't find any faults in it, it is just a 42 minute roller coaster ride with no skippable parts and a perfect ending.  I agree I probably think the second half of ATC through Test is probably the high point, but having a high point is just the nature of extended compositions.  Considering how good the whole thing is, I think it is amazing they actually pulled off a satisfying ending to it all, but they did.