TRAIN OF THOUGHT

If Metallica delivered this album instead of the randomly pieced together and repetitive St Anger, the fans would've hailed and cheered the return of the kings of metal.

17 years after Puppets, DT return with everything Metallica should have delivered after ...And Justice for All. It's not very prog, but it's very metal.

I guess relearning and playing the Master of Puppets and Number of the Beast albums got DT into a groove that resulted in them writing this music. It sits somewhere between Puppets and the approach of the Black album (note approach, I hate the Black Album. There are shredding guitar riffs and solos from Petrucci, dynamic drumming rhythms from Portnoy and dexterous basswork from Myung.

LaBrie's vocals have improved and are listenable again (he sounds best when singing softly, Six Degrees and the Live in NY stuff was strained and annoying).

Ruddess' Keyboards are barely recognisable as keyboards, I can't see how he is getting satisfaction out of playing guitar on a keyboard. There is more that he can add.

DT have produced their metal album. Like most other bands labelled as 'Progressive Metal', they are a bunch of top notch musos playing metal with a keyboard player instead of a second guitarist. We want to hear this, but there is nothing very 'progressive' about it.

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