BLACK CLOUDS & SILVER LININGS

I purchased BC&SL the day it came out, like I have all DT releases since Images & Words. And, like every other release, I give it a few weeks to sink in as I find their music takes a while to digest. Having given it adequate time to ferment my initial impression has been confirmed: this is, without question, the worst Dream Theater release ever.

I'm stunned that so many review are giving this such a high ranking. The simplest measure of my feelings for this disc is that when I'm listening I honestly can't wait for it to be over so I can get on to listening to something better. In my car I still have a 6 CD player and the mood change as it switches from this disc to Symphony X's Paradise Lost is unmistakable. (The fact I can't seem to pull Paradise Lost out of the player should tell you my feelings about that release).

Anyway....the faults with BC&SL are pretty evident and describe

1. Lack of new ideas 2. Poor songwriting further tarnished by abysmal lyrics 3. Musical wankery leading to needlessly long songs

1. Lack of new ideas: as anyone who's been listening to DT since the early days will readily admit, they've been regurgitating the same ideas for the last 10 years. The last act of originality from this band was Scenes From A Memory. Everything since has been reinventions of works they've done previously. Now this ailment plagues many a band and doesn't mean that their current efforts suck. It does mean they need to bring some other high-quality elements (like song ideas and lyrics, for instance). When I look at SDOITurbulence, ToThought, Octavarium and Systematic Chaos I hear reworked ideas but there's enough quality and variety to keep the listener interested. On BC&SL however, there is not a single song, passage, bridge, intro, outro, solo or transition here that the band hasn't done before, and done better. Literally, not a single song get me going when listening. Again, this lack of new musical ideas would be okay if it weren't for problem number 2....

2. Poor songwriting and abysmal lyrics: the lack of creativity is most evident in the poor craft of songwriting. Admittedly, this has never been a real DT strength (they're not Bono or Bruce Springsteen, after all). But, they've had some damn good ideas in the past, especially with their 90's output. I mean, if you outline the ideas the drove ACOSeasons compared to The Count of Tuscany it doesn't seem possible they came from the same people. One tells the story of life lived, of going through the "Spring" of youth and possibilities to a dark winter when life's realities bring the storyteller down to a rebirth and finally coming full circle when he watches a sunset with his son. A cohesive, compelling, full-circle story. The Count of Tuscany is about accepting a ride from a stranger while in Italy, going to a castle, being scared and finding out you had no need to be scared. Seriously, who would write about such a thing? And if you did write about it, what makes you think it's a solid foundation for a 20-minute "epic"? The quality of ideas found on BC&SL are infinitely inferior to other DT efforts.

The atrocious lyrics used to complete these sub-standard ideas just make it worse. Crap like "Life goes by in the blink of an eye, with so much left to say". "Thank you for the inspiration. Thank you for the smiles. All the unconditional love that carried me for miles". I absolutely cringe throughout this album it is just so, so bad. Again, hard to believe the people who wrote this penned ACOS, Learning to Live, Voice, Scarred, and the many other well-written songs they've done in the past. Which brings us to the final problem....

3. Musical wankery. The best example here is A Nightmare to Remember. This actually has the makings of a good song. The story of a family enjoying a night of celebration then suddenly having it all taken away in a car accident. The intro, first two verses and chorus and first break all work. Then there is a transition where, even on first listen you can tell the band has abandoned whatever store was being told and shifted instead into "we're gonna jam for a while here and perform outrageous workouts on our instruments, regardless of whether it fits the mood / tone of the story; and we're only gonna stop when we're damn certain we've proved to everyone that we know how to play our instruments really, really, really well". Amazingly, they do this, then bring in an outrageous attempt at death-metal growling from Portnoy, then go into a second needless, extended jam.

Now, this is DT and awesome musical prowess is a key component of the band and always has been. However, where once these musical wanderings were a 1 or 2 time diversion from otherwise standard song structures they are now pursued on virtually every song. It's one dimensional, formulaic, and frankly lazy. A Nightmare to Remember COULD be a good 6-8 minute song but instead is 15 minutes of drudgery. Virtually every song on this disc goes on too long (and about half of all DT songs since SFAMemory are too long).

Bottom line...I don't even want to listen to this thing and probably won't. Those of you claiming this is DT at their best really need to re-visit the first half of their catalog and make a sober comparison. I kinda want to give it two stars but I am a DT completist (own every CD, video and bootleg available through YTSEJAM) and even I don't like this. One star.