AWAKE

After Images & Words and Scenes from a memory this is my favourite Dream Theater album. And it is truly excellent. It was my first Dream Theater album and at first I couldnt find anything to my liking on it. Like with most of my favourites, I found myself liking it after a few listenes. Well, since then I have enjoyed it every time and I think it to be a great one.

It is in general a very enjoyable complex album with emotional songs and great maybe a little industrialish compositions. Different from other Dream Theater. As usual, Petrucci and Portnoy stun me with their great musician abilities. They are truly virtuosous musicians without a doubt.

1. 6.00- Starting with virtuoso Portnoys drumming intro and lasting for 5:31 intensive minutes, a great piece of prog music. 2. Caught in a Web- Melodic prog metal with emotional music and great performance by the musicians. 3. Innocence Faded- Similar to the previous track. Intensive, prog metalish, good music. 4. Erotomania- The best intrumental song by Dream Theater. Maybe only The Dance of Eternity is better. A fantastic composition. Complex music, odd time signatures etc. On Awake it is my favourite. 5. Voices- Similar to 2. and 3. track but different enaught to be very enjoyable. Emotional playing, complex structeres. Great music. 6. The Silent Man- A mellow song by Petrucci. Not exactly my cup of tea but a good soft song anyway. 7. The Mirror- A heavier and maybe more complex one. Excellent. 8. Lie- Something similar ( all tracks are very diffrent by compositions but at the same time some are with similar moods) to the previous and truly excellent as well. More metal than the others. 9. Lifting Shadows Off A Dream- Something softer. Gives balance to the album. Less complex, a quite prog pop-rock ballad. A weaker point in my oppinion. A little like U2. Good listening still. 10. Scarred- The main highlight of the album with the running time of 11 minutes. With Erotomania, this is the reason why I will rate Awake with 5 stars. 11. space-dye vest- The first track on this album that is quite bad. In my oppinion this one is a huge mistake on Awake. Composed by Kevin Moore, who I thought was a gifted musician before I heard this quite meaningless song. I would almost have put 4 stars to the album only because of this, the other tracks would make a masterpiece on their own. This one really drags down my oppinion about Awake. I have listened to it only a few times wholly, when I realised that this pop ballad with bad composing I turned the stereo off when the album reached this point of playing this song and ruin my good emotions of the magnificence and splendour of the rest of the album. In my oppinion- simply a non- listenable song.

Well, shortly, Awake is an essential album in prog-metal.