SIX DEGREES OF INNER TURBULENCE

Dream Theater and loudness do not walk hand in hard to well: check Octavarium and Systematic Chaos for that. However, Sex Degrees of Inner Turbulence manages to combine euphonically both loudness and melody. Definitely, this album marks Dream Theater's pass to the third millennium. Unlike Scenes from a Memory, it has a drum sound that "brakes" harder instead of a classical percussion production with light blasts, harder guitars and riffs with more groove and alternative influences unlike the light sounded, heavy metal style one used on the predecessor and most important, the keyboards are distorsed and focus more on psychedelic atmosphere, while the previous album had more classical piano moments. At first, i didn't consider Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence a masterpiece. But when i encountered the song that had the album title's name, i was more than shocked. The first five tracks are good and creative, especially the ballads that, as mentioned before, contain more than acoustic guitars and classical pianos and are, in my opinion, the best ballads Dream Theater has to offer. Yet it wasn't enough for me to give this album a five star rating. When the 6th track began, something out of this world happened to music: the overture is a symphonic intro that runs deep within the history of music being at the same time bombastic, soft and clean. It features some excellent baroque parts (as far as i see things) and a epic finale, a battle hymn similar to the ones heard on tracks by Rhapsody of Fire. The oscillation between soft and dark is typical for the entire song but i have to mention the way it relaxes the listener. I've never heard such a joyful metal being played on any record. I don't particularly enjoy "happy metal" because metal is usually dark, but this time everything is done perfectly:it's progressive metal all the way. I cannot finish this review without remarking James LaBrie's vocals of which I generally am skeptical. The rhythm is nice and at a level typical for Dream Theater, yet high for other bands even from the progressive rock scene. Dream Theater must be congratulated for not having repeated Scenes from a Memory and having the courage to explore a new sound and style in spite of the success they had in 1999.