A RITE OF PASSAGE

This promo album was for the promotion of the first single of Dream Theater 10th album. A RITE OF PASSAGE is a great song in the route of the previous lead singles CONSTANT MOTION and AS I AM, with the difference of some kind of Arabic vibe in the main riff. This is quite a rock in your face in the most catchy metal tendency of DT. Heavy, melodic and with one impressive break riff in the middle in which things get a lot heavy and metal driven.

I understand that some people can complain the "too metal" side of this song, but DT is very comfortable in that phase, and at the end this song is a single, and a progressive song can't be commercial or single, so, it's the best choice to promote DT in new markets. At the end there's a prove that the single work, helping the amount of selling records in the first week raising up to 40 thousand copies in the U.S. only. I think they don't need more justification than that. That's why this is a promo CD at the end of the day.

The second track is the edited version. Of course, it takes a lot farther to any prog reminiscences in the song. Basically, they took out some repeated riffs and the keyboard solo right in the middle of the song is out too. That was OK, I don't see any problem by doing that, especially for the annoying iphone sound that Jordan uses on it, but is not that bad either.

Two good songs (or versions) but of course this is for collectors and fans only. Great song though.