FORSAKEN

This EP features songs from Dream Theater's full length album, Systematic Chaos. While I understand that the songs on here were indeed the two singles from Systematic Chaos, I still wonder why this EP was released really. Neither song is particularly good if you were to compare them to some of the better songs off the full length album.

The general theme of this EP is of course, Forsaken, so I'll start off talking about that first. Forsaken is the shortest song off Systematic Chaos and was the second single of the two (the other being Constant Motion) to be released from the album. The song tells the story of a man, who is visited by a vampiress during the night. He believes she is showing him things of beauty, but he is in fact having his blood sucked from him, in true vampire style. This song itself, is nothing amazing really and certainly is one of the more simplistic of the songs from Systematic Chaos. Sure enough, it has bits of progressive elements here and there, such as the switch between 4/4 and 7/4 time signatures and some textural things going on between the guitar and keyboards. Overall, the song feels more like a standard heavy metal metal song of the time really. Petrucci's solo was definitely the highlight of this song for me. Superbly well written, with excellent phrasing, and great use of some faster alternate picked lines, never going over the top and always in control.

The live version, is well, just more of the same as above, nothing special.

Constant Motion was the first single off Systematic Chaos. The song is a metaphor for Mike Portnoy's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and always constantly being in motion in musical projects and other various things. It's very much influenced by 80s thrash metal, with Metallica coming to mind in many of the riffs. The song goes through various time signature changes now and then, but really it's a thrash metal song with some progressive elements and not a progressive metal song with thrash elements. Again John Petrucci's solo, is pretty amazing, with some lightning fast sweep picked and alternate picked lines, and followed by a not too shabby solo from Jordan Rudess. There is some interesting drum work from Portnoy, but nothing incredibly spectacular.

Not terrible by any stretch of the imagination.. far from it, but unless you're a hardcore fan of the band, it's nothing you would go out of your way to seek out and add to your collection really.

I genuinely don't understand why this was released. Dream Theater have never been an EP sort of band, with the notable exception of A Change Of Seasons, which is a completely different kettle of fish. This EP consists of nothing more than Forsaken which is identical to the studio version, an uninteresting live version of the same track, followed by a live version of Constant Motion, which is also quite unnecessary. It would have been understandable if they'd released this EP prior to 'Systematic Chaos', but in fact this was released as late as March 31st 2008 when 'Systematic Chaos' was released June 4th 2007. What's more is this is a digital download only, no CD version of this, so to get it you had to feed iTunes, or some other soul sucking website spewing awful protected files, which I'm ashamed to say I did back in the days when I thought Dream Theater could do no wrong. Maybe the only pro of this EP is that the live tracks sound better than their counterparts on 'Chaos In Motion 2007-2008', with crisper drums, and LaBrie not sounding like he's just swallowed a golf ball. However, there is nothing of worth on this supremely useless release, and it seems like a huge money trap for obsessive DT collectors who need to own everything the band have made. Poor show.