IMAGES AND WORDS

After reviewing my Dream Theater collection of all their studio albums I have come to the conclusion that IAW is their greatest album. With a masterful blend of soft and hard rock this album defines what DT is all about. "Pull Me Under" starts off the album well. Its guitar riffs along with the overlapping synthesizer create an adrenaline surge for the rest of the album.

"Another Day" tones it down with a wonderful arrangement for piano, strings, and the soprano saxophone. The theme also adds to the tastefulness of it.

"Take The Time" creates a wonderful blend of duple and triple meter time signatures that changes the flavor throughout.

"Surrounded" which I consider these weakest songs of the album is by no means intolerable. You geeky Dream Theater fans (including me) love the 9/8 and tapping guitar solo. The piano part is rather simple but so elegant in chord changes, thus proving that simplicity can make for perfect music.

This leads us onto in my opinion the greatest Dream Theater song ever, "Metropolis - Pt. 1 "The Miracle and the Sleeper." This is the most progressive song on the album. With beautiful time signatures such as 19/16 and 13/16, Dream Theater shows off their technical skill. This song is a prequel to their epic concept album "Scenes From A Memory", and it's fun to draw parallels after listening to both. We see Dream Theater's ingenuous skill of incorporating lyrics and musicality all into one song with the instrumental in the middle of the song. Their transitions are breathtaking.

In the song "Under A Glass Moon" what can I say? The guitar solo can speak for the whole song. Quite possibly one of the greatest guitar solos ever. It is my favorite. Portnoy's drumming shines through in this song a lot. I know in just the beginning I was drawn in with the catchy double bass pattern, again, not difficult, but very cool. You can hear his fast foot work and his ability to invent timeless parts complimenting the odd meters they play in.

"Wait For Sleep", considered an intro by many into "Learning To Live" combines soft singing, strings, piano, and odd meter all into one. The constant change between, 5/8, 6/8, and 2/4 further displays their technical ability (mostly Kevin Moore here), and they do it softly, proving you don't have to be shredding to be progressive.

The album ends with "Learning to Live", a simple message with mediocre lyrics however it is one that shouldn't go unsaid. John Myung does an incredible job at bass in this song. In fact, my favorite bass riff is near the end of the song when everything dies out and he comes in. We see his technical skill when he doubles what the guitar plays in some odd meter. LaBrie is absolutely astonishing in this album. We hear all sorts of range and his voice compliments Dream Theater well for his first studio album with them.

For those of you who say this isn't progressive rock, I ask you, do you know what progressive rock is? It's not all about the heavy guitar riffs. It's about musicality in both technicality and simplicity. It's not about being like Metallica, who are absolutely horrible in my opinion or Symphony X who are not bad but a little to cheesy for my liking. It's about not being afraid to do different things in an album but still follow the rock format of progressive rock. Dream Theater undoubtedly does that here and with all their other albums. They are the poster boys for progressive rock. Proceeding greats like Rush, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin, Dream Theater has taken progressive rock to a whole new level. That's why this album gets five stars. I only wish that I was older than four years old when the album came out.