Review: Dan Maynard
The five piece prog metal veterans Dream Theater are set to release their 16th studio album, Parasomnia this Friday the 7th of February and boy are we all in for a hell of a treat. After 40 years of progging away at the world, 15 full length albums, the longest sitting at a whopping two hours and ten minutes, it doesn’t look like these legends are anywhere near out of fuel.
Not only does this mark the band’s first album in four years, it also welcomes the return of long-time drummer Mike Portnoy who departed Dream Theater in 2010. Parasomnia will be Portnoy’s first appearance on a Dream Theater in sixteen years and he more than makes up for his absence with some incredible signature Portnoy moments throughout the album.
The album opens with a dark ominous tone of a person walking the streets, making their way to what I assume to be a bed, pressing play and laying back with a heavy sigh. It’s then that the notable sound of Dream Theater begins to appear, slowly building like a clock, tick tock tick tock is the feeling the band seem to be pushing onto the listener. A person falling deep into a dark slumber as the band hit their big intro that continues into a near five and a half minute opening instrumental. Besides a short intermission track Are We Dreaming, the five-minute opening song will be the shortest track on the album, no surprise there.
Following the instrumental, we are presented with the quintessential sound of Dream Theater. Night Terror truly sums up the band’s career in one lengthy ten-minute track. It encapsulates everything the band has brought into their discography. Time signature changes out the wazoo, massive drum fills, clarity driven guitars, a bass tone unmatched, James LaBrie’s baritone voice of an angel and peppered with a Jordan Rudess keyboard solo that will send your brain into complete mush (in genuinely the best way.) It may have been the first single, it may be the first official track of the album, but this honestly sits as probably my favourite track on the album. It is pure bliss.
Down a few tracks we reach Dead Asleep, an absolute ball tearer of a track. Opening with gorgeous clean guitars and an accompaniment of stunning strings and piano, it’s shortly thereafter hit with a massive John Pertrucci guitar riff. That pure essence of guitar tone knowledge that the guitarist and producer brings out is just gut punching with so much clarity it can induce the listener with goosebumps. Possibly the heaviest album on the album, it lines up in first place for me along with Night Terror.
After some incredible few tracks that follow, we reach the end of the album with The Shadow Man Incident. An almost twenty-minute piece of epic genius. I won’t sit here and break down the track for you, the reader. I will tell you now, it’s a journey, it’s perfection. If there’s one thing that Dream Theater can do well, it’s known how to perfectly close out an album and they’ve just that. I can only hope that if time permits, this song makes its way into the live set.
Parasomnia is a mark in a 40-year career that has seen the band through ups and downs, loss of members, reemerging members and everything else in-between. But nothing has stopped them. Nothing will stop them. They have reached a point that if they called it quits after this album (please don’t) but I think the fans could sit back and appreciate everything they have brought to the music world. And this album is nothing short of some of that discography’s best work. Don’t hold out a few days to listen to this album. Crank those headphones, blast the car speakers, just make sure it’s on speakers that can truly let you hear every element to the album.
Dream Theater’s 16th studio album, Parasomnia, drops on February 7 via InsideOut Music.
Preorder here: https://dream-theater.lnk.to/ParasomniaAlbum
