IMAGES AND WORDS

Definitely one of Dream Theater's finest hours and one of the overall best releases featured in the prog-metal genre, and it's a clear improment over their debut album too with overall stronger songwriting and clearer much more balanced production. New vocalist James LaBrie makes his first appearance here and gives the band a new and better voice to their music (their first one was too uneven, IMO). Musically, the mix of melodic prog and metal goes very well here and the band knows when and where to calm down in time, but they do provide some insane sections too, like the one in the middle of "Metropolis", a signature moment and song for DT. The longer tracks here are the best ones and "Metropolis" and "Learning to Live" are some of the best songs Dream Theater ever put out on an album, but the shorter and mellower tracks are very good too, notably "Wait for Sleep". The playing from these guys is incredible, Petrucci and Moore respectively add some really colorful contributions to the music with some wacky soloing and sounds, while Myung and Portnoy backs it up with a wall of sound with great drive.

A solid album overall with some of the best material from the band ever, especially in the latter half. It stands as one of their two best releases to me (the other one being "Awake") and is essential if you like prog-metal.