AWAKE

I'll make this quick (well not really). Dream Theater goes darker and heavier on this album. The great abilities of John(s) Petrucci, Myung and Mike Portnoy, combined with the incredible writing skills of Kevin Moore and Powerful voice of James LaBrie, make DT a powerhouse of a Prog metal band at this point.

Early 90's are still the early period of Prog metal so to speak, and yet with all the newly formed bands appearding, DT blows them out of the water. Even Today I am quite suprised that whenever I try to get into a band like Pagan's Mind or Threshold, they are just, well, boring. I think that that is because of their lack of originality that they have. Dream Theater are one of the main pioneers of the Genre, yet still many people think they are just copies of the Classic bands like Yes and Rush and Genesis combined with Metallica and Iron Maiden. The REASON Pagan's Mind, Threshold, and other not very well-known prog rock/metal bands are NOT popular is the fact that many of them do not do anyhting different than their predecessors (sp?).

For example, the classic 70's bands are hailed because they started the Genre in the first place (!) and by doing so did something no other Rock bands were doing at the time. In other words, they are original. The reason Prog metal bands such as Opeth, Riverside, DT, Pain of Salvation and Tool are the highest rated and most popular prog metal bands on this site is the fact that instead of following trends, they were/are very original!

OK, enough with that, back to AWAKE. On this album DT spends alot less time soloing and more time on the writing of this album. There are no filler tracks, and every song is beautifully written. Space-dye vest is the last thing Moore wrote with the band and left shortly after. He could not have given the band a better "Parting song".

Proggyness- 8/10 Writing- 10/10 Originality- 10/10 Musicianship-20/10

Because I do not agree with the site in what makes a 5 star album a 5 star album like "oohh, well only give it 5 stars if every single prog fans should get it!! oohh", I give it 5 stars because it is an incredible album, one of the best of the band, and very original.

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