Is Mike Portnoy ruining Dream Theater?

 

Petrucci, Myung, Portnoy and Rudess are all talented. But they need a new singer and someone to guide them, and some actual ambition for crying out loud, for what is considered a progressive band they just imitate all the prog and metal that come before and it all sounds very mechanical, static and routine.

 

Yeah they know all about the odd time signatures and stuff but even with all the different chord and time changes their music still manages to come off as predictable and boring to me. Nothing seems to suit a purpose, it's just showing off and nothing more, contrary to popular belief that's not what prog is all about, a lot of good prog bands show off their skills but they still have a sense of melody and rhythm and group chemistry, there's a structure behind what they do and there's a desire to convey certain moods and "images" through their sounds. Most importantly these bands "jam" when they have an idea to jam with. With DT none of these things really matter, they just have some obligation to do the same thing with every song.

 

They're so formulaic and every album is the same thing, I wouldn't mind if it wasn't under the pretense of being "progressive" music.  They're like a novelty band that only wants to satisfy the kinda people who think Nirvana destroyed good music or some stupid crap like that, they have the talent to explore new territory that nobody else could because they lack the chops but they choose not to.