AWAKE

Dream Theater used to be my favourite band for quite a while and this was their top album. While the DT-love has faded out quite a bit, I feel this is still their best, because I think that their metal side has always been better developed than their progressive side.

Following Images And Words, this is the darker and heavier record. While its historic importance is a bit less high, we're still in a time where progmetal was quite an underdeveloped subgenre (how different from the present). JLB's vocals form the weak point here (especially when compared to their latter day metal record, Train Of Thought), but it's close to the only one.

A positive difference with other DT's records is that the playing of particularly Portnoy and Petrucci feels quite to-the-point (rather than the aimless pounding and shredding we would sometimes be exposed to on later albums). I really love Petrucci's performance on Scarred, making one of the reasons why it's my all-time favourite DT-track.

Some other highlights: Caught In A Web, Innocence Faded, the A Mind Beside Itself-trilogy (although the songs have nothing to do with each other from a purely musical point of view) and Lie. I disliked the closing track, composed by Kevin Moore, for quite a long time, but over the last time I've come to see its own value a bit more.

All in all, a very good progmetal record and, writing 2007, still DT's best.