SIX DEGREES OF INNER TURBULENCE

To me this album shows why Jordan Rudess should be considered in the same company as keyboard contemporaries such as Rick Wakeman and Tony Banks. His composing and performance skills on the 42 minute opus that is "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" is nothing short of magnificent. Many attempts to truly combine rock music with orchestral scores have come and gone over the years with great artists such as Lord and Emerson giving it a go but, in the end, drowning in a morass of conflicting instrumentation and styles. But the minute I first heard the overture to this epic I knew that I was listening to something very unique and utterly enjoyable. I found myself smiling in amazement often. Jason's piano work alone is truly stunning and adds an important dynamic to the proceedings just exactly at the spots where it is most needed. Everyone in the group is at the top of their game throughout with Petrucci's incredible lead break at the end of "About to Crash" being a high point. It is Dream Theater doing what they do best and that is reaching for the stars and bringing them down to us intact. They do things in a big, big way and I, for one, love them for it. "Six Degrees" is one of their very best undertakings and well worth the price of this 2-cd set.

However, there is another disc included and it has to be addressed properly and with an understanding perspective. DT had just come off the high that was "Scenes from a Memory," an obvious landmark of progressive rock that will identify them as a major player in modern rock music for centuries to come. To just duplicate the same feel and atmosphere of that achievement would be redundant and stagnating. So they set out to do something different and take some serious risks. There are five songs on disc one and I have to say that 2 of them are terrific, 2 of them are iffy and one is a failure. I admire the chutzpah of an attempt to take on a topic as controversial as stem cell research in "The Great Debate" but, despite the excellence of the musicianship involved, it just doesn't work for me at all and goes on far too long. "Glass Prison" and "Disappear" have their moments but I can really take them or leave them when all is said and done. "Blind Faith" is great. And once again it is Rudess' percussive piano break that lifts the song into extraordinary status. And "Misunderstood" is fantastic with its shifting moods and fascinating changes of direction.

Overall this is a good effort from the boys that established the path they had chosen to take after "Scenes" and eventually led them to where they are now which, IMHO, is at the forefront of the progressive rock movement in the 21st century. Everyone knows how incredible Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci are but, with this release, Jason Rudess now has to be mentioned in the same breath as them. He really shines brightly throughout "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence."