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With a worldwide
releasedate pencilled in for november 11th what better
day to chose than armistice day. “Train of thought” is indeed a much
better solution to end the Iraq problem than all the other efforts
put together. Send the boys back home, we’ll send you an audio bomb
instead ! “Train of thought” is indeed just that : a bomb, a
collection of audio explosives shipped to every country of the world
where it will unleash truckloads of energy once it passes under the
laser !
When Dream Theater
decided to play all of Metallica’s “Master of puppets” and Iron
Maiden’s “Number of the beast” the wish of every single bandmember
to one day release a classic metal album in that direction became
more and more realistic. Add to this the fact that Dream Theater and
Metallica are signed to the same label and maybe it’s not such a
coincidence to know that “Train of thought” indeed holds a lot of
Metallica references. Also from a promotional point of view the new
Dream Theater album will be tackled in almost a similar way as
Metallica did with “St. Anger”. Every single piece of music remained
a secret until the day of it’s official release. All but one as the
band is fully aware that the internet can do a lot of damage by
spreading MP3’s as quick as you can blink an eye. Thus a radio edit
for the opening track ‘As I am’ was produced mainly for the US
radio’s who like to focus on a forthcoming album before the CD is
actually released. Only minutes after this edit was send to the
radio stations you could already find it on the net and even on the
band’s very own website. For sure the appetite was wet and everyone
the world over was anxious to hear whether at all the band would
continue in the more symphonic style of the second disc in the “Six
degrees of inner turbulence” package or tackle something completely
different. Listening to all seven tracks of the new album I can
clearly say that it has this ‘back to the roots’ feel all over
mainly concentrating on the live feel of the band. And that live
feel always gets most response when authentic metal is displayed so
yes “Train of thought” is mainly a Petrucci album whose guitar has
taken over from Jordan’s many solo escapes. After a first listen I
felt Jordan was not at all present but after listening plenty of
times to the new album I have to confess he is still arround yet in
a different fashion, having his contribution mixed in the back
whilst leaving behind the orchestral approach.
Produced by John
Petrucci and Mike Portnoy all emphasis goes towards hard edged,
powerful metal although Dream Theater remains Dream Theater which
translates itself into creating absolutey fantastic compositions and
arrangements. For sure the intro for ‘As I am’ is already stuck in
the minds of thousands of DT-fans and will unleash seas of loud
cheers once they perform it live. Petrucci’s riffs give you
goosebumps whilst it has to be said that LaBrie’s vocals fit the
song as a glove. Throughout the entire album it sounds as if Portnoy
has had a major operation during which two extra arms and legs have
been added because his playing is even more outrageous than ever
before ! Also Petrucci delivers superfast solo’s next to the often
distorted guitarsounds adding more power as the album evolves.
Portnoy calls ‘This dying soul’ as being sick and crazy as it
contains some of the chunkiest riffs ever displayed by DT. If you
thought ‘The glass prison’ had balls wait till you hear this one !
The song contains some distorted vocals whilst rubbing shoulders
with Pantera or Slayer however without leaving the Dream Theater
mark for one second. This track contains a speedy fusion like
intermission which sounds like Liquid Tension Experiment on acid
once again led by the Glimmer twins of progmetal : Petrucci and
Portnoy. Although ‘Endless sacrifice’ begins rather soft when
compared to the previous songs, a much harder approach soon sneaks
in with a sneering guitarchord as gimmick. On top of the riffs
Jordan sees the possibility to unleash his immortal Kurzweil on to
us amongst others by chosing for the Hammond sound whilst synths are
panning from left to right. Suddenly a mini concerto is on display
but this obviously lasts only for a couple of seconds as it’s back
to the power and beauty of the metal idea straight away.
With ‘Honor thy
father’ beginning with a short drumsolo no doubt this track can
become the end of a bigger drumsolo live which then automatically
fuses into this new composition. Again James’ vocals are slightly
distorted at times whilst the approach leans more towards the
nu-metal scene adding a certain commercial feel to it. Listening
with headphones also reveals some hidden Rudess features whilst for
a very brief second John Myung comes to the fore. Just listen to
Mike’s bassdrums here ! Double, triple or why not quadruple
bassdrums ? With the sentence ‘don’t cross the crooked step’ the
song changes revealing kind of a theatrical part between father and
son. This gives great opportunity for Jordan to deliver some of the
best keyboardparts on this album spicing this song up even more. No
doubt the odd-one out on this album has to be the splendid but short
‘Vacant’. Written by John Myung and Jordan Rudess this song is based
around James’ wonderful voice, piano and cello creating a most
welcome resting point on this album and a song which once again
proves the amount of talent which houses in the band. From the very
beginning the blueprint for this album had it that one instrumental
track should grace this CD. Because the writing for this composition
went so fluent the band decided to call it ‘Stream of consciousness’
and it’s indeed a constant flow of great ideas stitched together to
make an absolute highlight. Once again the guitar sounds ever so
heavy at times with Jordan’s keyboards replacing James’ vocals. On
the technical run-through for this song someone noted ‘DiMeola
melody’ which is exactly what you get whilst the name The Beatles
pop up twice in the second part of the song. The longest track comes
at the very end of this incredible album. Maybe it was Mike’s
friendship with Neal Morse which formed the basis for ‘In the name
of God’ as obviously working on Neal’s “Testimony” album the two
most certainly must have tackled the ‘god’ topic on more than one
occasion. During it’s intro Jordan and John play the same Eastern
flavoured melody together. There’s a wonderful section where Mike
attacks his drums from a more percussive point of view backed by
ambient sounds from Jordan’s Kurzweil but once again it’s Petrucci’s
guitar which brings the metal to the fore. At one given point the
music even evolves towards ‘metal-salsa’ ! I can’t stress enough the
fact that LaBrie is in top form on this album and ‘In the name of
god’ is no exception. Personally I would have loved to hear the end
of this song (and album) backed by a huge choir and orchestra
because the melody is so rich and strong. In the end this doesn’t
happen and only the piano remains ending it all in solitude.
“Train of thoughts”
certainly is yet another proof of the diversity and talent of the
band. Even the sleeve design is different this time around only
containing black and white images (DT’s “Black album” ?). A
fantastic effort from Dreamtallica or Metal Theater which will most
certainly end as everybody’s favourite when the ‘album of the year’
lists will appear. A classic metal album if ever I heard one and
most certainly a proof that the band is most certainly progressive
in the true sense of the word as they have taken us yet again on a
ride which we never experienced before !
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