AWAKE

After the rising success that IMAGES AND WORDS brought the master of prog metal they once again embrace us with their third tour de france...AWAKE. Now i've been a true Dream Theater fan through and through in fact i love about ever single album (including falling into infinity) and its strange how the sound of Dream Theater has somewhat changed and not changed over the years. But you still get the greatness from this band and that's you receive in this album. Its not quite as good as I & W by a hair but AWAKE is still a great album as this album gives us the heavier side of dream theater as they escape the keyboard driven sound from the last two albums and go into a more guitar drivin sound for some very great heavy, yet dark sounds. However don't let that fool ya as DT is still able to pull on the stops by bringing in a few other things from past albums as well in AWAKE. Well lets start off the great rocker 6:00 as it starts off with a nice Drum intro by MIKEY P. and then the band joins in into a nice progressive metal jam song. This song is very very groovey the guitar, drums, bass, and keyboard make up for it big time. Its still hard for me to say of who is doing the solo is PETRUCCI or MOORE?? then we go into CAUGHT INTO A WEB a very nice heavy metal rocker with a cool nice keyboard effect in the background. the guitar and drums are great and James Labrie showcases that this guy can wail. But then comes INNOCENCE FADED and even though it has a more AOR/ poppy feel it still is a wonderful track in fact i think its very catchy especially the chorus, outrageous vocals by James Labrie once again AND I DO MEAN OUTRAGEOUS nice guitar solo to finish the song. Then the meat of the album really starts to come in as we have the Epic sliced track of A MIND BESIDE MYSELF starting with one of my favorite instrumentals EROTOMANIA very crazy song as it has some flow here with some heaviness, melodic, and crazy time signatures here and there. then comes the mini epic VOICES a 9 minute song of greatness with a whole lot of lyrics (nice lyrics by the way) and GAH what other note can JAMES LABRIE not hit this guy is a machine plus a very cool improvised solo by PETRUCCI. then it all ends with the very lucious and oh so sweet THE SILENT MAN very nice song a good break in the album just to clam things down. THen comes more METAL GRRRRRRRR with THE MIRROR the first song written by MIKE PORTNOY where you have such great riffs and outstanding team work by the band then it automatically changes to LIE another great METAL song with a crazy guitar solo not much from Keyboards here by MOORE (big sign here) plus what's cool is after LIE gets over it goes back to a riff similar to THE MIRROR with a cool guitar effect solo. Then the album cools down again with LIFTING SHADOWS OFF A DREAM one of my favorite DT mellow songs this song is just so pretty very MARILLION-esque which is a big plus for me cause i just love the way Dream Theater can explore all styles within them selves. Then comes another big epic the 11 minute SCARRED this song kinda goes back in the PROG JAM mode to what 6:00 and EROTOMANIA sound like along with a few new things like a nice jazz intro by MIKE AND JOHN M. with a cool sustain guitar solo. But what really gives me goosebumps is the end where the band is just going crazy while MOORE really backs things up with a nice background effect. All these songs are great except for SPACE-DYE VEST i've heard people say its great i'm sorry but this song sounds way too depressing i mean it had it moments but then it just gets boring for me i'm sorry but if this song was not on this album then it would be a masterpiece but either than that great prog album by the prog metal masters known as DREAM THEATER!!!!!!