Roadrunner

The overly-prolific Dream Theater is back once again with their tenth studio album, Black Clouds And Silver Linings. There are few bands that maintain a love/hate relationship with its fans like Dream Theater does. Their willingness to experiment in unexplored territory tends to create controversy among their fanbase, but for the first time in many years, the band has decided to reel it all in and focus on creating a solid album front-to-back and with Black Clouds And Silver Linings, they have succeeded in spades.

After an ominous intro, A Nightmare To Remember opens up the album. It is a 16 minute track that exemplifies everything great about Dream Theater. The first 4 minutes has the band rocking out with a determined heaviness, churning out mammoth riffs and pounding beats. The song takes a turn to the melodic in the middle, creating some of the most genuinely beautiful music they have ever done. James LaBrie is in top form here. After excellent solos by Petrucci and Rudess, the song starts building up back to the heaviness of the earlier part of the song, containing vocals by Portnoy and eventually features him blast beating for the first time in his career.

A Rite Of Passage continues where A Nightmare To Remember left off. It is a more unique song, having a middle-eastern flair to some of the riffs, but having a great chorus you will find yourself singing along to. It is the album's first single, though at 8 minutes in length the band definitely had no intention of dumbing things down. Next is the shortest song on the album, Wither. It can almost be called a ballad, but it is indeed another beautiful piece of music that serves as a breather for what is to come next.

From Six Degrees onwards the band has been slowly assembling a grand epic conceptual piece referred to as the Alcoholic's Anonymous Suite. Based on the 12 steps of the program that Mike Portnoy was a part of in the mid-90's, the piece started out strong and started to outstay its welcome by the time the third installment rolled around. The Shattered Fortress serves as the final installment of the suite and after the mind-numbing tedium that Repentance provided, at least it closes everything out with a degree of redemption. Its on par with earlier installments The Glass Prison and This Dying Soul, being unrelentingly heavy and displaying the band's formidable chops. The problem I have with the song is that it shoehorns in the repeated themes from the earlier songs and while it was inevitable, I think they could had implemented them better. And even though this is intended to be the big capper, the end of it doesn't seem to be all that epic or grand. I guess in the context of this album it wouldn't had fit in well since its in the middle of the track listing rather than at the end. I imagine when they play the whole thing live they're gonna add a little bit more to it to make it feel like the grand ending that its supposed to be.

Of all of the tracks on Black Clouds And Silver Linings, the one that sticks out the most is The Best Of Times. It is a touching ode from Portnoy to his late father and as such carries a upbeat melancholic mood throughout. It has a genuine earnest emotion that has been missing from the band for a very very long time. Petrucci's guitar playing coupled with Rudess's work on the keyboard at the beginning of the song brings to mind early 80's Rush to me.

Last song on the album is in my opinion the best. At 19 minutes, The Count Of Tuscany never seems boring or too long. The song starts in typical Dream Theater fashion, busy drum work from Portnoy, majestic synth lines from Rudess, solid bass playing by Myung and tasteful guitar by Petrucci. It slowly builds til it hits driving guitar riffs and the songs heads right into LaBrie's vocals where he carries the listener into the song's adventurous story. The Count Of Tuscany has one of the most fist-pumping choruses the band has ever done, for certain my favorite part of the song. After several minutes the song goes into an atmospheric, almost haunting part and comes out the other side to the song's grand conclusion.

Many fans are already calling Black Clouds And Silver Linings the band's best album since Scenes From A Memory. While I will still defend Train Of Thought til I'm dead and buried, this album is definitely one of their only ones without a single bad song on it and approaches a perfection that few bands can achieve. This is one black cloud with an over-abundance of silver linings.


01. A Nightmare To Remember
02. A Rite Of Passage
03. Wither
04. The Shattered Fortress
05. The Best Of Times
06. The Count Of Tuscany

Score: 10/10