TRAIN OF THOUGHT

Dream Theater's straightest metal album. Little variety in texture or dynamics here, it's pretty much full on metal straight from the get go. Not that this is a bad thing, infact, this is one of my favourite DT albums probably for that reason. Each song has memorable parts, some lightning solos and very catchy riffs.

There are certainly many prog elements in this one, as you would expect. Time signatures fly everywhere (if sometimes they seem very forced), the structures are hardly conventional and the length of the songs is long enough with five of the seven being over 10 minutes long and one of the others weighing in at eight minutes.

This Dying Soul is part of the AA suite, and along with Stream Of Conciousness, is my pick for best from the album.

Not a good album to really show what Dream Theater are all about, but a very good metal album and any fans of heavy and/or technical music should give it a listen.