BLACK CLOUDS & SILVER LININGS

Dream Theater's latest album was a very positive surprise. It certainly struck me in a whole different way than their last few albums, more or less all the ones with Jordan Rudess. I wasn't expecting a good album, actually quite the opposite, since their previous effort Systematic Chaos was a total disaster in my opinion. But it turned out that they had gotten back some of the inspiration lost through the years.

The first track sounded like the heaviest, most diverse and coolest track the band had ever done at first, but now I feel it isn't any of those things. It doesn't really excite me much anymore, but still, it is a fine epic. Actually, pretty much the whole album has degraded from "incredible" to "fine" in time. I have nothing specific to mention about the shorter songs, since they leave me with an empty feeling. Mike Portnoy finishes his AA suite in a fine way. Even though it is basically a collection of recycled ideas, they form a nice flow, and some of them struck me more in this context than in their original places. The Best Of Times is the opposite: very incoherent. It has a couple of nice ideas, but they are buried in the mess. Gladly, the one last song, The Count Of Tuscany has maintained most of it's quality in the test of time. Still amazes me everytime.

It's a pity that Dream Theater didn't put their full spirit into this recording, because it could have been the best thing they've done in a long time. It certainly beats the previous album, but I'm not so sure about Octavarium or Train Of Thought which both have done me the just opposite effect from this: they've grown on me in time, and now I find them to be pretty fine albums.