TRAIN OF THOUGHT

Train Of Thought is the 7th Dream Theater studio album. There are 7 songs in this album, which exactly the same number I mentioned before, the 7th studio album. This concept is also used in the making of Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence (6DOIT) which has six songs and also in Octavarium which has eight songs. Train Of Thought is truly a black-heavy-very heavy-dark metal album, brings the term progressive metal to the next level. Is it also very surprising, that after the beautiful epic in the album Scenes From A Memory and Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence, Dream Theater chose to make a very dark metal album.

Mike Portnoy said on Dream Theater website that this album is the darkest and metal- est Dream Theater album and they don't plan to make another album like Train Of Thought in the future. In my opinion, this album doesn't represent the real side of Dream Theater, which usually put more traditional progressive elements to their songs. But nevertheless, this album is probably the most popular album for Dream Theater newbies, considering they (newbies) are new into progressive metal and appreciate more in the metal side of Dream Theater.

As I Am The most popular song in this album which can attract fans to buy this album. The same thing happened in the album Images And Words, where the first song, which Pull Me Under, is the most popular song, besides Metropolis Pt.1 of course. Just a secret, that the intro part of the song, which the sound effects increased slowly, is the continued sound from the last song, Grand Finale, taken from the previous album, Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence. For the solo, John Petruci played a very heavy and metal solo, which can only be played by the virtuosos : ).

This Dying Soul The beginning of the song is the continued part from As I Am, then followed by heavy rhythm section and then the intro solo. This is a really progressive metal song because of the odd time signatures throughout the song. The best part of the song is when the instrumental part begins, and like I said, very progressive.

Endless Sacrifice Slow and mellow intro and the first verse of the song, Dream Theater maybe thinks about a little after two heavy songs above. When the song reached the chorus, the tone and the feeling become more metal, but then it cools down again when the verse 2 starts. After the second chorus, a very amazing instrumental part begins, where I think is very different with the song, but that's progressive. Then, after a great instrumental part, LaBrie started to sing again.

Honor Thy Father This song consists of lyric represents anger, created by Mike Portnoy. Mike Portnoy, since the first album, is very identical with his dark and anger lyrics. He said on one interview, "I'm not very good at writing love songs, so I decided to write a HATE song!!!" Just some exceptions, like the lyric of Goodnight Kiss, which is very beautiful and mellow. The song begins with a sick drum riffs, truly great.

Vacant is more like an introduction for the next song, Stream Of Consciousness. The feeling of this song is more like sadness and emptiness, or in another word, vacant. There is an extra instrument in this song, a cello, played by Eugene Friesen, which creates a feeling of sadness, very nice tone.

Stream Of Consciousness WHOA!! A masterpiece of music, amazing in terms of technique, skills, song composition and the feeling inside the song. One of the best songs of all time. There is nothing to compare to this song because it is just really great. For me, the best part is the last guitar solo, which sounds like a conclusion for the whole song.

In The Name Of God The song is about the current issue around us recently, yes, the 9/11 tragedy. "Killing, in the name of God." A very beautiful song composed in progressive metal music. Just perfect. The instrumental section in the middle part of the song is just real progressive and unique. The song was ended in a beautiful keyboard riff and the arpeggio on keyboard which creates a deep feeling of the song. This keyboard section is then used to make The Root Of All Evil, in Octavarium album.

Overall, I give 5 big stars to Train Of Thought. Like I said before, this album has brought metal songs into the next level with progressive elements.

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