IMAGES AND WORDS

Images and Words is a very good album, though slightly overrated. Not because of the fact that everyone thinks it's awesome, but more because of the fact that so many people think this is Dream Theater's best album. In my opinion, Awake, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, Octavarium and especially Scenes From A Memory are better than Images and Words. The album itself is quite wonderful. It has a comfortable sphere and sounds often very dreamy. There are many different styles in the songs, which is always a good point. John Petrucci is amazing on this album, just like Kevin Moore, John Myung and Mike Portnoy. The voice of James LaBrie however is not really good. It isn't weird that the strong points of this album are the instrumental parts (like in Metropolis Pt 1 or Learning to Live). Now to the songs:

1 Pull me Under - 9.5/10 - Very good opener. There is much variety here and the riffs are awesome, not to mention the opening and the guitar/keyboard parts.

2 Another Day - 6/10 - Overrated song. Just a standard pop-ballad and I can't see why many people think it is so special.

3 Take The Time - 7/10 - Again an (slightly) overrated song...It sounds nice, but everytime I listened it I can remember only half of it. There is an awesome solo at the ending though.

4 Surrounded - 9.5/10 - Beautiful ballad. It begins with an attractive, quiet beginning and than it becomes very swinging. The solo always sounds very strange, but also very cool.

5 Metropolis Pt 1 - 10/10 - The predecessor of the best album of all time. It starts off as a quite normal song with a good, heavy guitar riff and good vocals of LaBrie. In the middle, one of the most memorable instrumental parts of Dream Theater starts, which is impossible to describe. Then the song becomes 'normal' again.

6 Under A Glass Moon - 8/10 - Good song, sounds very dreamy in my opinion. Many people say that it contains the best solo of Petrucci. It is indeed a wonderful solo, although there are better solo's of him

7 Wait For Sleep - 9/10 - Beautiful ballad before a great song. The piano parts of Kevin Moore always give me the creeps...Bravo Kevin!

8 Learning to Live - 10/10 - One of my favorite DT songs of all time. The variety and especially the instrumental parts make this song worth listening over and over and over....

All by all, Images and Words is (for most part) a beautiful album, but not the best of DT. Therefore I give it 4,5 stars (if it didn't contain Another Day and Take The Time it would have got 5 stars)