BLACK CLOUDS & SILVER LININGS

Better then Systematic Chaos but not by much. It starts off with "A Nightmare to Remember". The song starts off with a cool vibe that makes it seem like its Halloween then, there are some really cool blast beats laid down by Mike. The songs over 15 minutes and has all those tempo changes amazing musician ship things that we would expect form Dream Theater. The Problem is that Mike Portnoy tries to act like a death metal vocalist again (hes terrible at it and he should leave the singing to Jame). "A Right Of Passage" is an average metal song with a better than average guitar and keyboard solo in it. "Whither" is the ballad of this album, it constantly gets bashed for having cheesy lyrics but I like the song a lot actually. "The Shattered Fortress" is the last part of Mike Portnoy's 12 Step Suit. Its by far the worst of the suit and the worst song of the album. It just takes pieces of the previous song that are part of the suit and tries to merge them together. It think it failed to do so, and the song may not beable to stand alone by its self. "The Best Of Times" is the best song on the album. To me its like a throwback to the good old days of Dream Theater. "The Count Of Tuscany" is the longest song on BC&SL its very good. It would be way better if the lyrics weren't so dang cheesy.

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