METROPOLIS PART 2 - SCENES FROM A MEMORY

What do we have here? Dream Theater's "masterpiece" Scenes from a Memory? I guess so. I first heard this album about 2 years ago, and my opinions have changed very little over the long time period.

The atmosphere of this album is somewhat dark, but it has a great deal of color to it at the same time. Fatal Tragedy represent this accurately, with its throbbing guitar and piano, serious tone in the lyrics and yet the song has a large array of colors shown best with the varied instrumental sections. The song also shows off the melodic piano backing and break-neck speed synth solos of Jordan Rudess, who goes through more keyboard patches in a song that Kevin Moore or Derek Sherinian went through in 3. I think this gives the album many sides and brings out many feelings which help compliment the lyrics and makes the vocal melodies sound more dramatic, which works for a concept album such as this.

While the lyrics are actually quite straight forward in terms of understanding the concept, the wording on many of the songs fits the instrumental mood that is set. In my opinion, the best lyricists on this record are John Petrucci with his slightly mystic and vague poetic lyrics and John Myung, who wrote the lyrics to Fatal Tragedy only, but his free-style writing works very well with the song when heard as a whole. It may turn some people off that there are actually four people writing the lyrics to different songs on a concept album, but it actually works quite nicely.

More so than on their previous albums at the time this was released, this record features extremely complex and fast instrumental sections in almost every single song. I'm not a big fan of John Petrucci's solo guitar tone, nor Jordan Rudess' guitar-like synth lead, but they are undeniably amazing technical musicians. I prefer their melodic work much more, and Jordan Rudess's piano sections are some of the best sections on the album. John Myung's bass is low in the mix, but with headphones and an EQ configuration he is a bit more audible. Being a bass player, I am a fan of his playing, yet on this album I feel he doubles the guitar too often and is less melodic than on earlier albums, though he does have a few great bass lines on this record. Mike Portnoy's playing is excellent yet I don't think this is his best album.

The songs the stick out as the great ones for me are Fatal Tragedy, Beyond this Life and Finally Free. Fatal Tragedy features great piano and keyboard work from Jordan Rudess, great Lyrics from John Myung and a great central melody. Beyond this life features great melodies as well. Finally free is the highlight of the album for me. It features a soft guitar intro with words from the Hypnotherapist moving into a solumn piano secton intro with vocals, giving the song a powerful feel. The thing I love about this song is it doesn't feature any showing off from anyone, only powerful, climactic and melodic sections with plenty of sound effects. The album ends with a shout and static, only to be followed by the static opening of The Glass Prison three years later.

While there are many aspects of this album I don't care for, such as the overly technical solo sections, the rich melodies and textures this album features give it the extra star.

Therefore I say 4.2 , with .5 added for its powerful melodic sections and writing. A great album that everyone that is a fan of Progressive Metal should get, and those who are just getting into the band should start with Images & Words. 4.7 stars