WARNING: This is a spoiler review. DO NOT read if you've never heard the album before, because you'll ruin it for yourself. I DO hope you buy the album though, because it's good.Dream Theater - Black Clouds and Silver Linings
2009
Progressive Metal
I have no idea how to write music reviews or with brevity, so I'm just doing this from the gut. It's really long and indulgent, so I can't feel bad if you don't read it. The only thing I can say is that it's relatively free of music review jargon, which I loathe passionately. I suspect I'm not the only person who feels that way. So then, I'm going to stop blabbing and let you get onto the review, which is more blabbing. Sorry.
This is possibly the best album Dream Theater's created with Jordan Rudess. Scenes From a Memory has a lot of classic moments, but Black Clouds and Silver Linings is more consistent, stylistically what I like, and emotionally affecting.
Every Rudess-era Dream Theater album has been conceptual. Scenes was a straight up concept album, Six Degrees was experimental, Train of Thought was an attempt at heavy songs that would be energetic live, Octavarium was a deliberate attempt to write shorter and poppier, and Systematic Chaos was about “balls.” While this album had a concept as well, writing long songs, it just seems freer.
Since Rudess joined the band, Dream Theater's music has felt very sonically and creatively locked within a certain box. As I Am might have been startling the first time people heard it, but in retrospect I can't really imagine how it would be surprising.
Not that this album is a revolutionary change for Dream Theater, but the approach to its sound is fundamentally different than the last few albums. Rather than either imitating another band, or finding a minute aspect of their own sound and exaggerating it, they took the totality of what they are and tried to push it to new limits.
LaBrie in particular probably gets the “most improved” award for this album. Aside from Constant Motion, I didn't mind his vocals on Systematic Chaos, even though there are some weird moments. But on this album he's given a lot more room to sing and makes good use of it. Wither has some of his most emotional vocal work in years, The Shattered Fortress and a Nightmare to Remember show him being very intense. A Rite of Passage has him just being... really cool. The first verse is some of his best vocal delivery
ever in the band.
His vocals in The Best of Times aren't bad or anything, Portnoy seems to approve of them, but they seem almost a bit too subtle for the very raw and open-hearted lyrics. His vocal work during the heavy sections of The Count of Tuscany are the one really iffy moment. Like in Slaughter of the Damned, LaBrie just doesn't seem good at being aggressive in that sort of middling not high or low sounding register.
Still, as a performer, LaBrie should hopefully be shutting up anyone who thinks he's over the hill. He might not be the singer he was in 1992, but he's still got what it takes to deliver powerful and emotional vocals. If Portnoy and Petrucci give him good lyrics and vocal melodies, he delivers on them.
I wish Myung would be given something to work with. Any time the bass is remotely prominent on this album, it's genius. Check out A Rite of Passage Particularly. The ambient intro, the bass grooves, they way he plays along with the drums instead of only doubling the guitar - it shows what the bass in a Dream Theater song is capable of when given something to do. The lack of Myung moments on this is especially disappointing after Systematic Chaos, which was a huge step forward in that department. At least the bass mix on this album is good. The guitars on this album don't dominate the entirety of the frequency spectrum, so the bass can be both heard and felt.
While the bass might have taken a step back, the keyboards took a huge leap forward. The atmospheres are some of the most compelling of any Dream Theater album. A Nightmare to Remember has Gothic choirs with Moog leads, as well as a the sterile yet dreamy environment of a hospital (Petrucci's guitar is a big part of that too though).
The Count of Tuscany features a lot of insane Rudess work that never goes so far out it's unrelated to the song. The keyboard lead from 2:35 – 3:02 is one of my favorite Dream Theater keyboard moments ever, and I don't even know why. It's somehow crunchy, majestic, progressive, and techno all at the same time. His arpeggio during the “Give me one more chance” section is very beautiful.
Sonically, the keyboards aren't suffocated by overwhelming dryness in the mix or too much guitar either, giving Rudess sonic space he hasn't had before. I really wish he could find his mojo as a keyboard soloist again, because that's the only thing lacking about the keyboards. Still, if you're a Jordan Rudess fan, you'll love this album. If you're not a Jordan Rudess fan, this album should make you wonder why you aren't.
And then there's Mike Portnoy. While most of the band isn't as shy to interviews as Myung, Portnoy is easily the most outspoken. As one of the two producers of the album and the quasi-official band leader, his creative signature is all over this thing. It's hard to talk about Portnoy's work without talking about him or what the album as a whole is.
I guess I should get the actual drumming out of the way. Unfortunately, this is easily my least favorite album Portnoy's ever done with Dream Theater. The grooves don't strike me from a creative standpoint as much as they have in the past, and honestly it just feels sloppy at times. Listen to the reprise of the Repentance chorus in Shattered Fortress, Portnoy never plays a consistent beat the whole time. I don't want to be completely negative; most drummers can't live up to Portnoy at his worst, and there are some good moments. A Rite of Passage is very restrained but great, and Portnoy plays the heavy stuff better than he did on Systematic Chaos by a long shot. But I just can't get stoked about the drums on this album.
Portnoy's lyrics here are very raw. While sometimes this leads to being overly simplistic (such as the second verse of The Shattered Fortress), it also leads to some moments that resonate because the emotions are so unencumbered by the trappings of trying too hard to be lyrical.
As for his vocals, let me just say this – Mike Portnoy is a good backing vocalist. But when something happens like “The Section” in a Nightmare to Remember, it's just horribly wrong. I'm going to digress for a moment in fact.
Everything about the it's just messed up. I don't like when Dream Theater takes themselves too overly seriously, but there's a line between that and simply not caring. A Nightmare to Remember is a fairly dark song, and then Portnoy starts singing lyrics over what sounds like Dethklok. What? Death metal style lyrics about how everyone lived. What? Portnoy's vocals aren't even that badly performed, but he's not Tomi Joutsen or Mikael Åkerfeldt. You Not Me is catchy, I Walk Beside You has heart. I don't know what this is.
As a backing vocalist, Portnoy fits into the band just fine. LaBrie's vocals in the opening of A Rite of Passage are amazing enough, but then Portnoy adds onto them with this strangely atmospheric and crunchy call to march kind of thing. If you don't like the sound of his voice, then fine. But he's not trying too hard, he's not trying to step on LaBrie as the lead vocalist, and he's not taking himself overly seriously.
I think the growling sometimes gets to be a bit much myself, but I don't get why Portnoy backing vocals in general bother people like they do. He's perfectly capable of singing.
One other thing to say about Portnoy. I remember watching an interview where he talked about how this album was an attempt to write songs in more of an old school style. While some Dream Theater songwriting cliches are still present (the instrumental sections in A Nightmare to Remember and A Right of Passage), you can feel the difference on this album. Even A Nightmare to Remember, with its lack of transitions, still holds itself together as a song rather than disjointed sections that have nothing to do with each other. The Shattered Fortress seems like a cut-and-paste job if you don't pay attention, but the rearrangement of the music and lyrics actually makes sense emotionally.
Also, the thematic development on this album is some of the strongest Dream Theater's ever attempted, and that's the kind of thing Portnoy's directly involved in. His abilities as a producer are a whole separate discussion. What matters is this is a good album, and it's impossible not to give credit to the person who ultimately makes the decisions in the band.
And finally, let's talk about John Petrucci. Lyrically, his stuffs kind of a mixed bag. I'm not going to discuss The Count of Tuscany with any real depth here. I mean, really, “Sucking on his Pipe” speaks for itself.
Unlike many, I liked most of his lyrics on Systematic Chaos (The Dark Eternal Night is just too cheesy). Why? Because they focused on what makes John Petrucci lyrics work and avoided what makes them not work. There's very little prose description or recounting events, and more focus on insane images, big emotions, and storytelling. A man who wrote lyrics about a vampire making a man into her sex/blood slave should be in the lyricist hall of fame.
Excepting the “Dark Master” stuff, Heretic has some of John Petrucci's coolest lyrics ever. You don't know what's really going on, but you know it's surreal, something you care about, and going somewhere (at least that's how I feel).
On this album, some of the lyrics fall into that category. The “Peaceful Sedation” is packed with emotion. A Rite of Passage is about Freemasons, okay, but it's more about the imagery and emotion of it. Wither is one big internal journey, and is very emotional.
Say what you will about Portnoy's lyrics, but he's able to write very down to Earth lyrics and make them work. I don't know why, but I've never felt like Petrucci succeeded at doing this, the one and only exception being Scarred. Voices is as real as it gets, but its told through images that no one's ever really made sense of.
And that's the real flaw with a lot of A Nightmare to Remember and The Count of Tuscany especially. It's about
what happened, not what
happened. The best parts of The Count of Tuscany are the internal monologues in the chorus and the acoustic section. The fact Petrucci wanted to say goodbye and felt fate was dealing him a bad hand are what's interesting, not the brother's peace pipe. In fairness to that song though, “Go and tell the world my story” is a good way to end it narratively.
Vocally, I like his work. I still think his voice is a bit soft for the heavier sections (like the choruses of Wither and The Count of Tuscany), but there's many parts of the album where I think the backing vocals would be less good if he didn't do them. Petrucci almost shows more emotion in the bridge for Wither than LaBrie, the Peaceful Sedation chorus is great in large part because of how their voices mesh, and the chorus of A Rite of Passage wouldn't be nearly as interesting without LaBrie, Portnoy, and Petrucci's voices working together.
It's tough to talk about Petrucci's guitar work on this album because it's just so damn good. The riffs have an intense aggression to them that's heavier than Train of Thought and ballsier than Systematic Chaos. The solos in A Nightmare to Remember are a bit meh, but the rest of the songs feature solos that are ludicrously well crafted. The way he weaves notes through the backing riffs in A Rite of Passage melts my brain. The solo in Wither is too short and so sweet. The Shattered Fortress is a great aggressive solo that doesn't rely on shred.
The solo in The Best of Times is honestly one of the saddest things I've ever heard. I usually kind of tune it out otherwise I get caught up in the emotion of the thing. It's almost too good.
And then there's the spacey ambient solo in The Count of Tuscany. It's one of the ballsiest things I've ever seen Dream Theater do, and it's awesome for that reason. I like sitting back and just appreciating the simplicity of the thing. The song's about life and death, and the ambient section creates the space between life and death rather incredibly. Rudess's pads filling my mind with calm and while Petrucci's guitar soars through. Great stuff. I'm kind of bummed that Noxon spoiled it in his review.
It's also great to hear acoustic guitar again. It doesn't sound like much of an observation, but Petrucci doesn't play acoustic guitar like he does electric guitar. It adds a different color to the music that brings out the feeling in a more raw kind of way.
The first time I heard this album, I thought to myself “John Petrucci is a genius.” Not only is the guitar work great, but his abilities as a songwriter can't be ignored either. Look at Wither, solely credited to him. Tight, well composed, and on point emotionally. Without John Petrucci, there is no Dream Theater. It's really that simple.
This is a good album. No circus sections, no Beyond This Life or Endless Sacrifice jams, no overly shreddy guitar solos, no James LaBrie trying to be James Hetfield. This is Dream Theater being honest and being Dream Theater. I had a huge smile on my face during the whole intro for The Count of Tuscany because that sense of magic and wonder returned in such a visceral way.
And, maybe most importantly, it's the first time I've listened to a Rudess-era Dream Theater album and really felt truly emotional about it as a whole. People might say The Shattered Fortress is a cut-and-paste song, but the way the sections are played differently and rearranged helps to call up the feelings from the rest of the 12-step saga and bring them to a conclusion in a meaningful way. The Peaceful Sedation chorus (maybe my favorite part of the album) really gets me for some reason.
In many ways, it's the Dream Theater album I've wanted to hear for some time. Listen to it, because it's awesome.
8/10 (I'm a tough grader, like your High School Algebra 2 teacher. Images and Words is only a 9 on my scale).
Standout tracks: The Shattered Fortress, The Count of Tuscany
Burnout tracks: None
Cons: The instrumental sections in A Nightmare to Remember and A Rite of Passage, even though the latter has a cool guitar solo. Just too arbitrary. Some questionable lyrics. Drumming makes my mind hurt sometimes.
Pros: Petrucci's guitar, Rudess's atmospheric keyboard work, some very solid songwriting.
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