WHEN DREAM AND DAY UNITE

Rather weak debut from Progressive Metal icon Dream Theater. Maybe it's the cheesy synths and guitars, maybe the bland hair metal vocals, maybe the heavily Rush inspired riffs and the awful audio quality, whatever it is, this album is really just for devoted fans. There are a few good songs within this album, but they are few and far between. John Petrucci is at his metal best, although he doesn't have the sophistication he'll have later. Myung is probably the strongest musician on the album with creative, often somber bass lines. Portnoy is energetic and frenetic, but doesn't have that precision that he'll have on later albums. You can see some promise in Moore, but he doesn't really shine with his bland synthesizers. Charlie Dominici, who makes his only album appearance with DT on this album, has the generic 80's metal vocal style, very monotone and very high-pitched.

Anyway, the good tracks on this album are Ytse Jam, a malevolent instrumental that has all the DT flares. Creative riffing and superb bass playing top off this track. Only a Matter of Time concludes this album, a very abstract piece lyrically but a very strong musical piece, but sound quality is less than par on this one.

Overall, if you are a DT fan, you own this. But if you want a good representation of DT, check out Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence or Scenes From a Memory. 2/5.