TRAIN OF THOUGHT

Train of Thought is quite easily the heaviest album that Dream Theater have produced and at first you get an "Oh no" impression from it, that Dream Theater have sold out for money or whatever. But don't worry, this really does turn into a grower after a few listens.

OK, this isn't the proggiest album in history, nor was it ever meant to be, but DT have kept up there track record of not having two albums that sound like each other. This album takes the metal sound of Disc 1 of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence and concentrates it into a series of very heavy, semi-epic songs (and one true epic). I've heard all the complaints about this album, that Rudess doesn't do much on it, that Myung cant be heard, that its just a Metal album, its rubbish etc etc. First off I find that Rudess's keyboard playing is integral to the feel of some songs, the intro to As I Am would be much poorer without him for instance. Secondly, I don't know what every one else listens to music on but John Myungs bass is more audible on this album than it is on most of DT's, and its never usually a problem anyway.

Shredding. This seems to be the biggest complaint most people have about this album and to be honest, when you here This Dying Soul, I can see what people mean. However, this song aside, I don't hear endless shredding in this album, in fact there's a lot of very strong melodic work going on and lots of great solos and powerful riffs. Hell, every member of the band is on fine form instrumentally and they showcase this on each song and, more often than not, it doesn't get out of hand.

The vocals on this album are great as well. LaBrie vocals tends to have a love it or hate it view from many people but I love it and always have, but its clear that with each passing album his vocals get better and he has moved away from some of the high pitched shrieking that went on in Awake and Images and Words, which is definitely a good thing. Having said this though, his vocals don't suit the attempted rap in This Dying Soul and it just sounds awful to me.

Overall I find that the only low points of this album are This Dying Soul (far too long and with some pointless, annoying sections), Stream Of Consciousness (A bit repetitive for my tastes) and the fact that this isn't a very proggy album. However it is very enjoyable and even the short Vacant offers a nice break before the final two songs, just so everyone can catch their breath. This gets 4 stars.