1. False Awakening Suite - 2:42I. Sleep Paralysis
II. Night Terrors
III. Lucid Dream
2. The Enemy Inside - 6:17
3. The Looking Glass - 4:53
4. Enigma Machine - 6:02
5. The Bigger Picture - 7:41
6. Behind The Veil - 6:53
7. Surrender to Reason - 6:35
8. Along For The Ride - 4:45
9. Illumination Theory - 22:18
I. Paradoxe de la Lumiere Noire
II. Live, Die, Kill
III. The Embracing Circle
IV. The Pursuit of Truth
V. Surrender, Trust & Passion
If you've made eleven albums over the course of 24 years, I guess you've earned the right to skimp on a title... especially when you deliver a set of songs equal to the best work of your career. With new drummer Mike Mangini fully integrated into the band as a co-writer, Dream Theater deliver thoughtful, complex, inventive progressive rock that shows them breaking new ground rather than resting on their laurels.
They start off with a very risky move - a miniature suite, compressing their genre-bending grandeur and instrumental expertise into three fifty-second segments that disappear almost before they've made their impact. I thought maybe it was an overture to the album, but so far I haven't found any of these micro-themes expanded anywhere else. Perhaps an exercise in a form of minimalism, perhaps a comment on prog pomp (hence "False Awakening"), it is a fascinating piece of music to start things out.
On the opposite end, the epic "Illumination Theory" takes plenty of chances of its own. The lyric subject matter is an aggressive philosophy class: the first section ("Live, Die, Kill", following an awesome instrumental overture in "Paradoxe") grabs you by the collar and poses essential questions: What are you willing to live/die/kill for? These questions provide a launching point for similarly turbulent and tortuous prog-metal flights of virtuosity which are starkly interrupted by "The Embracing Circle," four minutes of zero-time ambient keyboard and sound effects, gradually melting into an orchestral cadenza from keyboardist Jordan Rudess. The melody barely resolves before John Myung (bass) and Mike Mangini roar into a fantastic stop-time rhythm to start "The Pursuit of Truth", and vocalist James LaBrie really lets it rip as he examines the questions posed earlier: "Mothers for their children/Husbands for their wives/Martyrs for the kingdom/Fighting for your life". The final section "Surrender, Trust & Passion" answers the opening triptych, rising from the elemental concerns of existence to higher concepts. LaBrie delivers the uplifting message with some of the best vocals of his career, and guitarist John Petrucci turns in an emotional solo. Then, silence - until Rudess comes back in on very calming, introspective, and beautiful piano, with Petrucci adding tasteful volume-swell accents. It is perhaps one of the most elegant yet bewildering opuses on record, and (in my opinion) one of the best pieces of music the band has ever composed.
Bookended by these two pieces are seven songs that boast similarly outstanding compositional structure and performance values. Gone are the misguided metal growls; LaBrie showcases his impressive range as well as he has since his first album with the band. Petrucci dominates the instruments, as he tends to do, but he has so much to say that is worth hearing. Myung, Rudess, and Mangini all contribute to the compositions with musical hunger but masterful taste. I could probably wax eloquent about each song: the densely intricate and exhilirating "The Enemy Inside", the high-energy rock of "The Looking Glass", the instrumental insanity of "Enigma Machine", the piano-ballad-turned-knotty-guitar-highlight "The Bigger Picture", the emotional metal of "Behind The Veil", the multi-part anthem "Surrender to Reason", and the ridiculously catchy yet still intelligent "Along For The Ride" all make this sound like a debut album from an exciting new band, not a business-as-usual offering from jaded veterans churning along.
Arbitrary rating: 5 out of 5 elegant compositions
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