WHEN DREAM AND DAY UNITE

The great beginning of a truly legendary band. WHEN DREAM AND DAY UNITE is the first exposure of Dream Theater to the world, showing that they could develop prog metal leading it to new horizons. I must admit that the first time I heard this album it didn't suprised me very much, thinking of the next ones as a true "evolutionary" shift. But after rethinking (and re-listening) Dream Theater's music and history, it became clear that there's a true purpose in what we might call the "first era (1987-1995)" of the band. Listening to the first 3 albums makes you realize that. Every one of them is different from its predecessors, and attempts to investigate new forms and sensible ways of reaching a message that only music (conceived as art) can manage to do. This is a very important characteristic that they lost after the departure of Kevin Moore and a couple of albums (Falling... and Scenes...), but that is still present in this one.

Still, it is not a masterpiece of progressive music, but it has a lot of highlights that you cannot just ignore. If we want to be a little harsh, we can think of WHEN DREAM AND DAY UNITE as a Queensrÿche album taken a step beyond in every aspect: instrumental interaction, lyrical conceptualisation, general music pacing... No wonder why Derek Shulman from Gentle Giant decided to promote them at their beginning.

The songs that you must hear: A Fortune in Lies, Ytse Jam, The Killing Hand, The Ones Who Help To Set The Sun, and Only A Matter Of Time.