TRAIN OF THOUGHT

For me this album represents a big decline in the quality of writing from Dream Theater. The songs although chock full of heavy riffs, unisons and time sig shifts seem to lack any direction and to my ears end up sounding like a collection of riffs. The lack of distinct clear melodic hooks is also very disapointing...I've always enjoyed Dream Theater above other prog/metal bands because of their ability to fuse interesting harmonic ideas, blistering technicality with soaring melodies but here, the melodic aspects are sadly missing.

Technically the playing is immaculate as always, John Petrucci (Guitars) really goes for the throat on this disc (personally I prefer his more melodic playing). Everything is tight and accurate and the production is great - the bass is more audible than previous releases. If you like your prog on the heavier side of the spectrum theres lots to interest you here, otherwise you may be well advised to check out some of the bands earlier releases - "Images and Words" or "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulance".