[dorio]

Submission courtesy of grandrebelmaster


Band: Dream Theater
Album:Train of Thought




Elektra, 2003

James LaBrie - vocals
John Petrucci - guitars
John Myung - bass
Jordan Rudess - keyboards
Mike Portnoy - percussion

1. As I Am
2. This Dying Soul
3. Endless Sacrifice
4. Honor Thy Father
5. Vacant
6. Stream of Consciousness
7. In The Name of God


As anyone who actually knows me could tell you, I absolutely love Dream Theater. Which is why I hate to say that they really shot themself
in the foot on this one. They came together on this one for the sole purpose of making a heavy album, and heavy it is. Pointedly so. It comes
off more as a Metallica ripoff than a Dream Theater album.

Now I'll get into the songs. I'll admit to enjoying As I Am very much. It's one of the best songs on this album. A lot of Metallica influence

here too, but this is the one song where they manage to do it right. This Dying Soul isn't bad lyrically, featuring many of the lyrics found in

other parts of Portnoy's "AA Suite." However, musically, its 11-minute is not justified, and LaBrie's delivery of the lyrics is terrible. It even

resembles Linkin Park-esque rapping at times. Endless Sacrifice is possibly best track on the album, even if like many of the others, it is a

bit overlong. Honor Thy Father takes all the terrible elements from the performance of This Dying Soul and focuses on them. There is some

very good soloing in this one, but it's buried late in the middle of a 10-minute song, and you have to sit through more LaBrie-rap (a term I

hope to never use again) to get to it. Vacant is a throwaway ballad. (Which is a shame that when they chose a song from Train of Thought to

include on Score, Vacant is the one they used, instead of either As I Am or Endless Sacrifice.) Stream of Consciousness isn't a bad

instrumental, but it suffers from taking 6 or 7 minutes worth of good ideas and dragging them out to fill 11 minutes of CD space. In The

Name of God is features a lot of Metallica-esque riffing, cheesylyrics, and an entirely unjustified length of 14 minutes.

So, the final verdict on the album: Hardcore Dream Theater fans will want it for As I Am and This Dying Soul, the latter because it fits into

the AA Suite. Furthermore, anyone who knows what that IS is probably so much of a Dream Theater completist that they already have this

(kinda like me.) For casual Dream Theater fans, As I Am is probably going to be the main interest here. This review will probably get me a

lot of contempt from Dream Theater and Metallica fans, and a lot of people will probably disagree with me. But I feel that this is one of

Dream Theater's worst.

[sledgehammer83]

This is my favorite DT album. It's all about "This Dying Soul".

[grandrebelmaster]

This is my favorite DT album. It's all about "This Dying Soul".

I figured a lot of DT fans would disagree with me. I'm glad you didn't try to say something "You just don't like it because it's heavy, you can't take the heaviness!!!!!111"
Someone tried to tell me that once.

[sledgehammer83]

This is my favorite DT album. It's all about "This Dying Soul".

I figured a lot of DT fans would disagree with me. I'm glad you didn't try to say something "You just don't like it because it's heavy, you can't take the heaviness!!!!!111"
Someone tried to tell me that once.

haha that's pretty funny. All of the DT albums have heavy elements to them.

From what I've heard of it, the new album (Systematic Chaos) is pretty heavy.

[grandrebelmaster]

This is my favorite DT album. It's all about "This Dying Soul".

I figured a lot of DT fans would disagree with me. I'm glad you didn't try to say something "You just don't like it because it's heavy, you can't take the heaviness!!!!!111"
Someone tried to tell me that once.

haha that's pretty funny. All of the DT albums have heavy elements to them.

From what I've heard of it, the new album (Systematic Chaos) is pretty heavy.

Yes it is. When they tried to tell me I hated it because it was heavy, I told them "Well, Awake is my favorite and Systematic Chaos is my 2nd favorite. So yeah, I've obviously got problems with heavy music."