Where to start with... Dream Theater

author MD date 26/04/05

September 1986, at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, guitarist John Petrucci and John Myoung formed a band along with the drummer Mike Portnoy. Kevin Moore was found to fill out the keyboard position, and now a vocalist was needed ? for this task they found Chris Collins - and the new band Majesty was founded. Already in November the band experienced their first troubles, after having released ?Majesty records? which sold over 1000 copies, Chris Collins left the band together with the pianist. After lots of rotations, exchanges, problems and so on, the band ended up with a 5-man line-up containing: Mike Portnoy (Drums), John Petrucci (Guitars), John Myoung (Bass), Derek Sherinian (Keyboards) and James LaBrie (Vocals). Meanwhile the band had been contacted by another band named Majesty who urged the band to change name, and so they picked Dream Theater. Loads of recordings have been made since, and the band has risen into worldwide stardom with countless fans.

The band?s main genre direction is progressive rock, but the latest albums have had a stronger and more metallic sound. For example, Train of Thought is much more progressive metal than progressive rock. In Europe and USA the band?s fans mostly tend to like the more progressive parts, while the eastern countries tend to like the hard metal Dream Theater has made during their long career.

Take some time to listen to the highlights and best moments mp3, if you find Dream Theater nice and want to go buy a CD with them, it's very hard to find out were to start. Dream Theater has gone through a huge development, in the late 80's they were very much into progressive rock, but later on they've gone harder and now the band plays progressive metal as mentioned before. If you want to buy your first album with Dream Theater, my advice would be to start with ?Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From A Memory?, this album is great to start out with before advancing into the rest of the Dream Theater record collection. It contains loads of good, easy to adapt to songs. Remember to pay attention to the lyrics especially on this album, since it is a concept album, meaning that the whole album follows a storyline, which gives just that extra thing to the lyrics. If you like this album, your follow up purchase could be the live DVD recorded from New York: ?Metropolis 2000: Scenes From New York?, or ?Train Of Thought?!

Under the name of Dream Theater, these guys have released nothing less than 16 titles, and of course no band can keep on creating huge albums, so even Dream Theater has had an 'off-day', if you should be especially aware, or even avoid, of buying any DT album this would be ?When Dream & Day Unite?. Of course this is very much a subjective view and some will definitely not agree, but I find this album their absolutely weakest.

Except for the live DVD ?Live in Budokan?, released in December 2004, the band has been inactive since late 2003. Since then, great news have surfaced on the band?s official website, which will make the hardcore Dream Theater fans wet themselves. The word is that their new album ?Octavarium? is to be released on the 7th of July. The tracklist is as follows:

1. The Root of All Evil

2. The Answer Lies Within

3. These Walls

4. I Walk Beside You

5. Panic Attack

6. Never Enough

7. Sacrificed Sons

8. Octavarium

The rumours say that this album will be very progressive and at the minimum keep, and maybe even extend the hard metal sound of Train of Thought.

Listen to the highlights and best moments of Dream Theater ! (Right click, save as...)

Enjoy the music, and don't forget to buy the records!

Comments
comments powered by Disqus

Legal

© Copyright MMXXIV Rockfreaks.net.