A VIEW FROM THE TOP OF THE WORLD

There's a phenomenon where the Grammys award an artist for a current release when in fact they're being awarded for previous musical efforts. That feels to me like what happened with Dream Theater's 2021 album A View from the Top of the World. And if that's the idea, then I'm all for it. If one views the Grammys as the highest authority on Western popular music (ignoring that time they gave Best Metal Album to Jethro Tull over Metallica, but I digress), then certainly one of the most musically talented, creative, and boundary-pushing bands of my generation is long overdue for an award.

But judging the album alone... I'm sorry, I can't get there. It's what Dream Theater sounds like to people who hate Dream Theater.

Growing up I always heard that Dream Theater was boring, pointless technical wankery bereft of melody or structure--and I couldn't disagree more. Petrucci had a flair for solo lines that were technically impressive and memorable (Another Day, Voices, Surrounded), as well as the Yes-inspired prog metal that came to define their sound. And they used time signatures in the same way Soundgarden would a few years later on Superunknown-- not to be musically pretentious, but to make the flow of the song less plodding (see: Wait for Sleep).

I'm personally not a huge fan of Rudess, whose arrival seemed to trigger an arms race with Petrucci over who could cram more notes into a solo. Still, Dream Theater had some memorable songs and solid albums during this time-- even if they now heavily relied on influences like Muse, Rush, and Koji Kondo to get there. (Go back and listen to Panic Attack and tell me that Petrucci hadn't just marathoned Super Metroid before writing it.)

But on this album, the Rudess-Petrucci arms race crowds out every other musical idea. Myung is barely audible. Mangini continues to bring the slick professionalism that the band clearly aspires to, but the album is so overproduced as to feel like absolutely nothing. And the dissonant chords and time signature shifts now serve no musical purpose except to remind you, the listener, that Dream Theater are better musicians than you.

Sadder still is James LaBrie's diminished presence. You really start to notice what he once brought to the table that he can't anymore. LaBrie often gets a bad rap for not being as much of a virtuoso as everyone else in the band, but I would argue he's a different kind of virtuoso--one with a real knack for writing vocal melodies and giving exactly the kind of delivery each song calls for (in studio, at least--live is often a different story). I'm not a huge fan of The Astonishing, since DT don't even try to pretend they aren't rotely copying 2112 and Mindcrime anymore, but it really shows you what LaBrie can do even after the wear and tear of age, fatigue, and food poisoning.

But on this album you can barely hear him over the wall of sound that is the rest of the album, and he can't bring the same dynamism to his vocal melodies that he once did. This of course isn't his fault--no one feels the march of time more than the lead singer--but the music suffers nonetheless.

And yes, he wrote their Grammy-winning opener--but to be honest, I have similar trouble recognizing it on its own merits. The lyrics (when you can hear them under all that processing and bombast) often feel clunky and unnatural, like they were written by the Scorpions or Helloween--and at least they have the excuse of being German.

I have trouble even calling this album "progressive." Complex, certainly. Neoclassical, probably. And it's more metal than some of their earlier offerings. But how many times can you rip yourself and others off before the term "progressive" becomes an oxymoron?