Train Of Thought - Dream Theater

I'll get it out of the way now, I'm aware that many others find this album disappointing, and I can totally understand their viewpoint. After all, when put up against 'Scenes From A Memory', 'Images and Words' and 24-minute epic song 'A Change of Seasons' most albums will pale in comparison. Having said that, this is a review of Train of Thought as an album, not as part of Dream Theater's ever-burgeoning catalogue. Train of Thought is a definite departure from what most fans are used to from 'Scenes' and 'Images', but that in no way makes it a bad album, just perhaps not what most people were expecting. If album-opener 'As I Am' was a case of start as you mean ...

Dream Theater are a supremely talented progressive metal band from New York, whose output and creative decisions since the turn of the millennium have been largely questionable and, in the case of their mediocre seventh album, borderline awful. 'Train of Thought' is easily my least favourite album the band has produced, forsaking much of their classic style in favour of a slow and heavy groove metal sound more suited to the metal mainstream of the time, a very limiting direction that fortunately turned out to be short-lived before they reinvented themselves again. Despite these concessions to the mainstream, the album is equally marred by the band's ...

On the heels of yet another globe spanning tour, and a somewhat mixed release of the double disc album: 6 Degrees of Inner Turbulence, the 5 virtuosos of Prog-Metal decided to strip back the range of sounds used and focus on a hard hitting heavy metal-edged album. As with most of their records, the Lyrics are shared between James (Vocals), Mike (Drums) and John P (Guitars), with John M (Bass) and Jordan (Keyboards) in the background. Individual songs reflect their own styles, and also leads to multi-input on the longer tracks. A criticism of 6DOIT (it's too long to constantly retype!), was the rambling, 20 minute title track and some general over-indulgence ...