SIX DEGREES OF INNER TURBULENCE

Two discs worth of exceptional, complex music from the leaders of the genre with more instrumental awesomeness than ever before. "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" rocks hard from start to finish with well composed, mature writing and blisters with technical flourish.

Jordan Ruddess brings even more to the table in terms of writing and playing; his keyboarding is a perfect counterpart to Petrucci's dazzling guitar, and the two engage in some outstanding lead and solo moments. The rhythm section outshines itself here as well, with Mike and John cranking out some huge assaults on the senses. This is Dream Theater's most mature album up to this point, and the group sounds tighter and more cohesive here than on all previous albums.

The songs themselves are all first class, giving us lots of variety and moods, "Blind Faith" standing out as my favorite. The center piece and conceptual piece which fills the entire second album is a well composed, orchestrated epic, and shows the group's collective talents for composition nicely.

Realistically, this one is as good as "Scenes From a Memory", but I submit that the songs are not quite as iconic, or grandiose as those on former, but is absolutely worth the money.

Songwriting: 4 Instrumental Performances: 5 Lyrics/Vocals: 5 Style/Emotion/Replay: 4