Scott's Spotlight #7 -- Dream Theater

May 19, 2025

Scott's Spotlight #7 -- Dream Theater

Originally posted to Facebook on October 17, 2024.

Link to post:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/xN5tjmS5NzJzQymd/

Welcome to Scott’s Spotlight #7 (#scottsspotlight). For more information, please see this post: https://www.facebook.com/share/Gc2VkwHQWGLdeaDd/?mibextid=oFDknk. In the spotlight today is a band who needs no introduction to many of you, progressive metal gods, Dream Theater. I chose to feature them due to the release of the new single “Night Terror,” from their new album to be released next February (2025), “Parasomnia”.

The roots of Dream Theater go back to 1985, when three students from Boston’s legendary Berklee School of Music– guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung (the two of them had been childhood friends prior to going to Berklee), and drummer Mike Portnoy–started jamming on Rush and Iron Maiden songs in the school’s rehearsal rooms. The three were all from towns on Long Island, New York. In 1985, while the trio were waiting in line for Rush tickets and listening to Rush songs on a boom box, Portnoy made the comment that “Bastille Day”’s closing section sounded “majestic” and they decided to call the band Majesty. Soon after, Petrucci called a former high-school band mate named Kevin Moore to join on keyboards. Next up, they heard another Long Island friend named Chris Collins, sing Queensryche’s “Queen of the Ryche,” and they were impressed enough to have him join the band. Thus, the band’s first line up was born. Before long, Pertucci, Myung, Portnoy and Moore had all dropped out of college (Moore was attending SUNY Fremont) to focus their energy on the band. By early 1986, the band began recording demo tapes of mostly original music. Within six months, the band had sold the initial run of 1,000 cassette tapes, while fans dubbed copies of the tapes (known as “The Majesty Demos”) and a buzz around the band began to spread. Apparently one can still purchase a cassette of the demos today, even though they were released on CD and are available on streaming services from 2022.

The band’s first line-up change would happen when singer Chris Collins would be fired from the band. According to the “Dream Theater Wiki,” website, Collins was dismissed due to what the band felt was poor vocal range and poor onstage behavior, including one incident in which he insulted John Myung’s Korean heritage and nearly came to blows onstage. The band felt they’d never achieve success with Collins in the band. It would take a year for the band to find a suitable replacement in Charlie Domenici, who was considerably older and more experienced than the rest of the band. Domenici’s professionalism and industry contacts led to the band getting more frequent and higher profile gigs around New York. Soon after hiring Domenici, however, a Las Vegas band also called Majesty threatened legal action for the band to stop the alleged “intellectual property infringement,” by using the same name. After trying out the name Glasser, and considering M1 and Magus, the band changed their name to Dream Theater at the suggestion of Portnoy’s father, after the name of an actual theater he was familiar with in Monterey, California. The name (obviously, and thankfully IMHO) stuck.

By 1988, Dream Theater had attracted the attention of Mechanic Records, a division of MCA Records. They signed with the label and released their first official album, entitled “When Dream and Day Unite,” the following year. While often overlooked, there is some good material on the album, including opening track “A Fortune in Lies,” and the instrumental titled “The Ytse Jam” which would return to the setlist often, but apparently has not been played live since 2011. (The “YtseJam” name would also be used for Mike Portnoy’s record label until 2022, which released archive studio and live recordings from the band.) Unfortunately, Mechanic Records did not deliver on the financial commitments they had pledged to the band. The “tour” for the album was only five shows in the New York area, with the first one as an opening act for Zebra. After the fourth show, the band amicably parted ways with Dominici, when they began to feel that his vocal style would not be suitable in the long run for the music they wanted to pursue. They wanted a singer more in the vein of Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden or Geoff Tate of Queensryche. Domenici was called back for a fifth show, however, when they were given the opportunity to open for Marillion at the Ritz in New York City. While Domenici’s tenure with the band was relatively short, he did leave a lasting mark (literally) on the band by designing the “Majesty Symbol” that they use to this day. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Theater#Logo_and_imagery) It was later discovered that the symbol contained all of the letters of “Domenici,” with Dominici quipping that it only took 25 years for fans to figure out the “Dominici Code.” In 2004, Dominici joined the band onstage for a celebration of the 15th anniversary of the first album. Sadly, Dominici died in November of 2023 at the age of 72.

Following the departure of Domenici, it took the band 2 years to find a suitable replacement. During this time, they also fought successfully to be released from the Mechanic Records contract and write for a new album. More than 200 singers would audition, including former Fate’s Warning (another early progressive metal band that influenced DT) singer John Arch, although he ultimately would decline the invitation to join to attend to personal commitments. A singer named Steve Stone would be announced in 1990, but was fired after one disastrous performance where he tried to act like Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden and even shouted “Scream for me Long Beach!” like Dickinson did on the “Live after Death” Iron Maiden live album…they were not IN Long Beach, however, rather in Bay Shore. Finally in January of 1991, their patience was rewarded, when they received a demo tape from one Kevin James LaBrie from Canadian glam-metal band Winter Rose. The band were about to commit to another singer when they heard LaBrie and knew they’d found their man. He dropped his first name to avoid confusion with Keyboardist Kevin Moore, and LaBrie has been the DT singer ever since. During LaBrie’s initial phase of working out his vocal parts that were largely written before he joined, Derek Shulman, of prog veterans Gentle Giant, who had become a record executive, and by that time was the CEO of Atco records (later renamed East-West Records, a division of Elektra Records) signed the band to a seven album contract on the strength of a 3-song demo. That demo was later released as “The Atco Demos.”

The resulting album, “Images and Words,” released in 1992, was the one that brought the band major recognition. Although, initial single and video “Another Day,” failed to gain traction, it was the follow-up, “Pull Me Under,” that broke the band wide open. The video for the song got frequent airings on MTV and garnered radio airplay. The recording of the album was not without problems. The producer that the label hired for the album, David Prater, locked the band out of the studio until Portnoy was forced to use a sampled trigger on his snare drum, the same one the producer used on an album by Hair Metal band FireHouse that same year. I called the album a “game changer” in my review that I did while counting down the Top 100 Greatest Prog Albums of All Time according to a Prog Magazine readers poll. I will provide a link to that post in the comments. The band wanted the album to be a double album, including the extended epic “A Change of Seasons.” The record company nixed that idea, but they would release the song a bit later (more to come). The band would tour widely following the album’s release, and the album would eventually be certified gold by the RIAA. A live album called “Live at the Marquee,” and the live video "Images and Words, Live in Tokyo.” were released in the interim between studio albums.

In February of 1994, the band returned to the recording studio to record the follow up to “Images and Words,” called “Awake.” The success of “Pull Me Under,” and “I&W” put a lot of pressure on the band to equal that success. However, between 1992-1994 the music scene had undergone a radical transformation, with the 80s style of metal being out and grunge being in. While Dream Theater’s talent transcends that of the typical 80s metal “hair-band,” Awake was still received as being out of step with current trends and was deemed a failure from a commercial standpoint. None of the songs broke out as a big hit. “Lie,” and “The Silent Man,” were the singles released and neither made much of an impact, from a sales standpoint. (IMHO, they should have put out “6:00,” as that song gets stuck in my head for days at a time.) The album has grown in stature over the years among fans of the band and prog rock in general. It also is listed on the Top 100 Prog Albums poll mentioned earlier and I’ll link my review of it as well. As the sessions for the album came to a close, keyboardist Kevin Moore elected to leave the band, stating his desire to go in a different musical direction. Since his departure, Moore seems to have completely removed himself from anything related to Dream Theater, refusing to sign any DT CDs or merch. Some reports say that Portnoy felt that the timing of his departure was unprofessional and said that had he known that Moore was leaving, Moore’s song “Space-Dye Vest,” (one of my favorites on the album, BTW) would not have been included, as it was only included to accommodate Moore’s change in musical direction. His departure left DT very little time to find a keyboardist for the following tour. [Moore has refused any invitations to take the stage with DT. Moore and Portnoy would later play in a project led by Fates Warning’s Jim Mateos in the early 2000s, but Pornoy left the project after the second of four albums, citing musical and personal differences with Moore.] For the tour, the band initially approached keyboard virtuoso Jordan Rudess, who played a one-off show with the band as a favor, but he chose to go play with the Dixie Dregs instead (remember the name, he’ll be back…). They then hired respected session player Derek Sherinian, who had toured with Kiss and Alice Cooper as a touring member initially, becoming a full member in 1995. During a Christmas break of the tour, LaBrie went to Cuba with his wife, where he caught food poisoning that actually damaged his vocal cords. LaBrie continued to sing against the advice of his doctors, but said his voice was unpredictable for several years following the incident. Only in 2002, eight years later, did he feel like his voice had truly recovered.

The next release from the band is 1995’s “A Change of Seasons,” (remember that title?) The band had initially recorded the 23 minute epic in 1992 for inclusion of “Images and Words,” but the label did not want to release a double album. Fans petitioned for the song to be released, so they re-recorded the song with Sherinian on keyboards. They released the song as an “EP” with a selection of cover songs recorded from a special show at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz club in London, England the previous year. The running time of nearly an hour is longer than most single albums released before the CD age, but the band didn’t feel it should be given full-album status. I consider it to be an essential part of the Dream Theater canon.

After the perceived lack of success of “Awake” by the record label as well as a change of management at the label, outside songwriter Desmond Child was brought in to assist with songwriting. While Child has a long track record of hits with Kiss, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Joan Jett, Alice Cooper and others, he was decidedly out of place with Dream Theater. The label wanted “shorter, more concise, radio-friendly tracks.” Petrucci is said to have gone along with the label’s wishes, while Portnoy was dead set against it. The producer was Kevin Shirley, who is well known to Rush fans for his work on “Counterparts.” The end result, being the only full-studio album to feature Derek Sherinian on keyboards and as part of the writing process, is a mixed bag of music, called “Falling into Infinity.” While there is some longer progressive material like “New Millenium,” “Lines in the Sand,” and “Trail of Tears,” There is also the blatant attempt at a radio friendly hit in “You, Not Me,” co-written by Petrucci and Desmond Child. It’s not all bad, but I would rate it as probably their weakest album overall. Ironically, while “Awake,” was considered a commercial failure by reaching #32 on the Billboard 200 album chart, “Falling Into Infinity,” only hit #52. So much for label interference. A live album from the tour, entitled “Once in a LIVEtime,” would be released in 1998.

Following the album and tour, Mike Varney of Magna Carta Records asked Portnoy to put together a “Progressive Supergroup.” He and Petrucci along with bass legend Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel and countless others), and…Jordan Rudess, remember him? The band, which would bill themselves as Liquid Tension Experiment (LTE). The quartet recorded 2 albums in 1998 and 1999, and would later reunite in various configurations from time to time. However, the biggest outcome from these collaborations was that Jordan Rudess was convinced to join Dream Theater as keyboardist, as his commitment with the Dixie Dregs was concluded. Of course, that meant that Derek Sherinian was pushed out. Any hard feelings over the ouster of Sherinian seem to have been worked out over the years, as he would be invited to perform with the band at the “When Dream and Day Unite” 15th anniversary show in 2004 (which included a jam featuring him, Rudess and Petrucci), and in 2017, he was invited to join Portnoy’s prog metal supergroup called Sons of Apollo. Unlike Moore, he is said to autograph any DT items he was involved with for fans.

With Rudess on board, DT would head back to the recording studio in 1999. After the interference from the label during “Falling Into Infinity,” Portnoy gave the label an ultimatum that Dream Theater would have full creative control over the next album, which they accepted. Potnoy and Petrucci would produce the album themselves. The album grew out of what was meant to be a joke way back on “Images and Words.” The track “Metropolis, Part One, The Miracle and the Sleeper,” had the was referred to as Part One only as a joke by Petrucci and no part 2 was ever intended. Fans, however, had a different idea, and this album grew out of that desire from the fans for a sequel. Initially, it was attempted as a 21 minute track during the “Falling Into Infinity” sessions, but once again the label refused to let them have a double album. Fast forward two years and now it is a full album titled “Metropolis, Pt. 2–Scenes From a Memory.” And WHAT AN ALBUM it is! Many consider this one to be DT’s finest album. It also made the 100 Greatest Prog Rock albums list and I will link to the post with my review. Since that was a deep dive, and if you want to know more I encourage you to go to that post (linked in the comments). I’ll just summarize here that it is a full-concept story involving a past life regression of a murder victim. My all time favorite DT song is on this one “The Spirit Carries On.” A live album called “Live Scenes From New York” followed. In a bizarre and tragic coincidence, the album was released on September 11, 2001, the day of the infamous 9-11 attacks, and the cover featured the skyline of NYC, with the twin-towers covered in flames behind a heart in flames. The cover was later changed in reissues of the CD.

As it turned out, the band managed to head off another 9-11 coincidence during the mixing of the next album, “Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.” The song “The Great Debate,” was initially to be titled “Conflict at Ground Zero.” The band were actually in the recording studio mixing the album when the 9-11 attacks occurred, and were able to change the title after the press began referring to the site of the twin-towers as “ground zero” before the album was released. This album is notable for several reasons. The first reason is that DT finally got the green light to make a double CD from the record label. The opening sound on the first disc is that of the static of a record album, thus linking it with “Scenes From a Memory", which ended with the same sound. This trend of ending an album with a sound that would begin the next album would link the next several albums. The song that that sound leads into, is called “The Glass Prison,” which is considered a part of the “12-Step Suite,” chronicling Mike Portnoy’s journey through Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). This song contains the first 3 of the 12 steps. “The 12-Step Suite would encompass songs on the four following albums as well. Disc 2 Is comprised entirely of the album’s title song, albeit split into 8 tracks on the CD and digital versions of the album. It is officially DTs longest song, at 42:02. Six of the eight movements reference a person with different psychological disorder (excepting the Overture and Grand Finale). With there being 5 songs on the first disc and one on the second disc, the album has a theme of 6- Sixth album, six tracks, and the sixth song is about 6 different people. This one was also a part of the 100 Greatest Prog albums and as such I reviewed it, and will put a link to that post in the comments. The album ends with a piano chord that will open the next album.

That next album would be 2003’s “Train of Thought.” Portnoy stated that he wanted this album to be more “balls to the wall” and heavier than previous albums. According to the Dream Theater Wiki-Fandom website, the album caused a rift between “prog DT fans” and “metal DT fans.” Although I consider myself to be more in the prog camp, I have enjoyed the songs I am more familiar with on the album, especially “As I Am,” “Stream of Consciousness," and “In the Name of God.” “This Dying Soul,” continues the “12-Step Suite.” Some of the lyrics of “As I Am,” refer to an incident that happened during a summer tour with Queensryche where Queensryche guitarist Mike Stone attempted to give John Petrucci guitar playing tips–and believe me, as a guitarist myself, John Petrucci doesn’t need Stone’s help in that area! The lyric that Petrucci wrote about this is, “Don’t tell me what’s in, tell me how to write.” The lyrics to “Vacant,” written by LaBrie, refer to an incident where his young daughter went into an unexplained coma for 3 days just prior to her seventh birthday. “Honor Thy Father, “ is about Portnoy’s step-father. When asked why he chose to write that song, Portnoy replied that “I’m not very good at writing love songs, so I decided to write a hate song!” Finally, it was discovered that there is a bit of morse code in “In the Name of God,” that translates into “eat my ass and balls,” which is considered to be a Portnoy catch-phrase. As with the previous album being the sixth album and containing six songs, this album being the seventh has seven songs. The final note on the album, that will connect to the next one, was played by Jordan Rudess on the keyboard with his nose. A live album entitled “Live at Budokan” would follow in 2004.

Next up for the band is their eighth album. “Octavarium.” (2005) Being the eighth album, it includes eight tracks, and the theme of the album is based on a musical octave (a span of eight notes in which the lowest and highest notes in the sequence have the same letter name and “octave apart”). Each song on the album is one key higher than the one before it, starting in the key of F minor for the opening song and moving through as though each “white key” on a keyboard is the root note for the key of each proceeding song, and using short pieces where the black keys would be in between the notes. I hope that makes sense for those readers who don’t know much music theory. That said, the band tried to make the songs on the album a bit more straightforward, with the exception of the 24 minute album closing title epic (another one of my absolute favorite DT tracks). Album opener “The Root of all Evil,” is the next part of the 12-Step Suite.” Other notable songs on the album include “Panic Attack,” which is considered by many bassists to be very challenging to play correctly and one of John Myung’s best basslines. “Sacrificed Sons,” has lyrics written by James LaBrie and is about the 9-11 attacks. But for me, the ultimate one is the title track, which I consider to be a tribute to prog rock as a genre. It begins very much like Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” but moves through the styles of classic prog bands including Yes, ELP, Kansas and more! The album ends with the first note of “The Root of All Evil,” thus closing the loop for this album and putting a close to the connected albums begun with “Scenes From a Memory.” The band used an orchestra on 3 tracks on the album, and on the ensuing tour, brought an orchestra on tour. The orchestra for both the album and tour were conducted by Jamsheid Shirifi who was a classmate of Petrucci, Portnoy and Myung at Berklee. A live album called “Score,” (2006) documents the tour on their 20th anniversary concert.

In 2007, the band decided to take a heavier approach again with “Systematic Chaos.” John Petrucci is credited with writing the lyrics for 5 of the 8 tracks, while Portnoy wrote 2 and LaBrie the other one. As is customary with DT, all 4 of the instrumentalists share writing credits for the music. The album is bookended by 2 parts of “In the Presence of Enemies,” which when combined is a 25 minute epic, with a very dark storyline based on a Korean manhua (the Korean equivalent of manga) called “Priest.” In fact, all of the Pertucci songs on the albums basically tell fictional stories. Portnoy’s on the other hand are related to his personal battles. “Constant Motion,” is about his OCD, while “Repentance,” is the next installment of the “12-Step Suite.” In “Repentance,” several guest prog and metal musicians make cameos giving apologies: Steve Hogarth, Steven Wilson, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Mikael Åkerfeldt, Corey Taylor, Daniel Gildenlöw, Neal Morse, David Ellefson, and Chris Jericho. Yes’ Jon Anderson provided a “melodic mantra” for this section of the song. LaBrie’s lyrical contribution is more political in nature, as “Prophet’s of War,” is based on a book that lays out ulterior motives for the Iraq war, playing on the pun of replacing “prophets,” with “profits.” The album was quite successful, reaching the top 20 in 8 countries, including a #19 peak in the USA. Following this album, DT released a compilation of 22 songs from the albums “Images & Words” up through “Octavarium,” with the fantastic title: “Greatest Hit…and 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs,” in 2008. Also in 2008, they released a live DVD from the “Systematic Chaos,” tour called “Chaos in Motion, 2007-2008.”

The title of the next album, “Black Clouds and Silver Linings,” (2009) is more ominous than they probably realized in light of the events that would unfold in the near future for the band. Unbeknownst to them at the time, it would be the last album to feature Mike Portnoy in the band until his return to the band in 2023. (More on that later.) The album’s lyrical theme deals with difficult or disturbing personal experiences, with 4 of the six tracks lyrics written by Petrucci and the other 2 by Portnoy. “The Shattered Fortress,” is the conclusion to the 12-Step Suite begun in 2002 on “Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.” My favorite from this one is probably “The Count of Tuscany.” In addition to the 6 original songs, the “Special Edition” of the album, includes cover versions of songs by Rainbow, Queen, Dixie dregs, Zebra, King Crimson and Iron Maiden. This album put DT in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart at #6 for the first time. The band toured on the album until summer of 2010.

Not long after the tour, the unthinkable happened. On September 8, 2010, Mike Portnoy announced his departure from the band. DT fans around the world were in disbelief. Portnoy had been the de-facto leader and chief spokesman for the band, as well as one of its primary lyricists and co-producer with Petrucci.. Many considered him to be the heart of DT. The reason for his quitting was revealed as being that Portnoy wanted the band to take a 5-year hiatus so that the individual members could pursue outside musical projects before reconvening. He later reduced the hiatus to a one year break. The rest of the band was opposed to this idea, so Portnoy left. A month following his departure, DT held a round of “by invitation only" auditions for a new drummer. With Portnoy being considered one of the world’s greatest drummers, this would be a very difficult position to fill. Mike Mangini, Derek Roddy, Thomas Lang, Virgil Donati, Marco Minnemann, Aquiles Priester, and Peter Wildoer were all auditioned, and Fates Warning drummer Bobby Jarzombek had to decline the invitation due to scheduling conflicts. A three-part YouTube documentary titled “The Spirit Carries On,” chronicled the auditions and the ultimate selection of Mike Mangini, who had played with Extreme, Steve Vai and James LaBrie’s solo projects. It was later revealed that a short time after Mangini’s selection, Portnoy wanted to return to the band, but his offer was declined as Mangini had quit his professorship at Berklee (yes, another Breklee connection) to join the band. Portnoy in the meantime was involved in several projects including Transatlantic, The Neal Morse Band, Sons of Apollo, Flying Colors and The Winery Dogs. Portnoy’s departure closed out a decade plus chapter of the band with a stable lineup and six very well-received studio albums.

With Mangini now on the drum throne, the band would spend the first half of 2011 recording the next album, called appropriately, “A Dramatic Turn of Events.” They used that title as a theme for the lyrical direction of the album, writing about several dramatic events throughout history that have caused significant changes. Another motivation in writing the album was to reassure longtime DT fans that the band was still able to deliver the type of music that fans expected without Portnoy on board. They compare the album to favorites “Images and Words,” and “Scenes From a Memory,” in writing style. The album put the band in the top 10 again in the US with a #8 peak on the Billboard 200. I must admit, that for whatever reason, this is the album I am least familiar with in the DT catalog, as I only have one liked track on my iTunes/Apple Music library from the album– closer, “Beneath the Surface.” That is not for any reason other than the songs just haven’t come up as frequently as those from other DT albums when I play them on shuffle, including others from the Mangini era. Album opener “On the Backs of Angels,” was nominated for a Grammy for “Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance,” in 2012, but lost out to the Foo Fighters’ “White Limo.”

The band began writing for the next album while on the “Dramatic Tour of Events.” They chose to give the album an eponymous title to signal to fans that they are unified as a band in their new lineup, and it was released in 2013. While on the “Dramatic Turn…” album, Mangini was asked to replicate drum parts that were programmed on a drum machine by Petrucci, on this one, Mangini was fully involved in the writing process. Petrucci said “the guy’s a monster,” when referring to Mangini’s drumming on this album. This album peaked at #7 on the Billboard 200, thus becoming the band’s second highest position on that chart, just behind “Black Clouds and Silver Linings.” The album contains the 22 minute epic “Illumination Theory,” and eight shorter songs (the longest of those clocking in at 7:40). There are 2 fully instrumental tracks on the album–Opener “False Awakening Suite,” and “Enigma Machine”--marking the first time since 2003 an instrumental was included on a DT album. I have liked 5 of the album's 9 tracks on iTunes, including “Illumination Theory.” Petrucci wrote lyrics for all of the non-instrumental tracks, with the notable exception of “Surrender to Reason,” which marks a rare lyric submission from John Myung. Also notably all 5 band members, including James LaBrie, were credited with writing the music for 6 of the 9 tracks. Strings were utilized on some of the tracks, and once again a Berklee student did the string arrangements, Eren Başbuğ. Two live albums would be released following this album–”Live at Luna Park” (2013) (from “The Dramatic Tour of Events”), and “Breaking the Fourth Wall,” (2014) from the tour for this album at the Boston Opera House, and featuring the Berklee World Strings and Concert Choir.

The next studio album, released in 2016, is “The Astonishing,” and it lives up to that title with an astonishing 34 tracks over 2 hours and 11 minutes of music. It is by far the longest studio album that the band have produced and their second rock opera style concept album along with “Scenes From a Memory. Interestingly, the album was composed entirely by John Petrucci (lyrics and music) and Jordan Rudess (music). The story is a complicated dystopian concept, much too long to include here. I have liked 9 of the album’s songs on iTunes, but have never tackled the whole thing. I may have to review it someday for #scottssongbysong. It hit #11 on the Billboard 200, but #1 on Billboard’s Hard Rock Albums Chart. The “Astonishing Tour” saw the band play venues such a s Radio City Music Hall and played the album in its entirety with no songs from other albums being added in until the end of the tour in 2016. The following year, 2017, the band did an “Images & Words 25th Anniversary Tour,” playing that album in full along with “A Change of Seasons,” which, if you can remember that far back, was originally written for “I&W”.

The next studio album from the band was 2019’s “Distance Over Time.” It is scaled way back from the epic undertaking of “The Astonishing,” at just over one hour in length (just under without the bonus track), and 9 primary tracks and one bonus track. While reaching only number 24 on the Billboard 200, it reached the top 10 in 19 countries. There are no tracks over 10 minutes in length (true of “The Astonishing,” as well, but the sheer number of tracks makes up for it). The writing credits have lyrical contributions from all but Rudess, and shows music credit to the 4 instrumentalists, making it a much more collaborative band effort than “The Astonishing.” “Room 137,” is the only DT song with lyrics by Mangini, and Myung collaborated with Petrucci on two tracks. LaBrie wrote lyrics to two tracks (3 counting the bonus track). I have liked 5 of the tracks, including the bonus track “Viper King.” The following tour would also coincide with the 20th anniversary of “Scenes From a Memory,” which the played in full on the tour, and is included on the 2020 live album, “Distant Memories–Live In London.”

The final Mangini era album is titled “A View From the Top of the World” (2021). For the first time since 2013, there are tracks over 10 minutes in length, including the epic album closer title track at 20 minutes in length. I know I particularly like the opener called “The Alien.” and have liked 4 of the 7 tracks. All five band members are credited with writing the music, while Myung wrote one, Labrie two and Petrucci wrote the other four sets of lyrics. “The Alien,” gave the band their first Grammy win, after two previous nominations.

Starting just before the release of “A View…”, the band announced the release of archival material both studio and live, on a series called “Lost Not Forgotten Archives.” They go back to early demos, and various live shows that hadn’t been previously released. Several albums have been issued in this series.

On October 25, 2023, it was announced to great rejoicing by DT fans that Mike Portnoy was returning to Dream Theater and that Mike Mangini was leaving amicably. Not to take anything away from the amazingly talented Mike Mangini, but it just wasn’t the same without Portnoy’s energy. They began writing for the new album in February of 2024. The first song from the album (NightTerror’) was released on October 10, 2024 and the album, titled “Parasomnia,” will be released February 7, 2025. Reaction to the new song has been overwhelmingly positive. I personally LOVE it. I can't wait!

If you made it through all of this, I thank you and congratulate you!

From comments:

Links for Listening:

(And links to reviews)

From: “When Dream and Day Unite”

:The Ytse Jam”

https://youtu.be/S9E0_LZoN1U

“A Fortune in Lies”

https://youtu.be/EbjcixbasME

From “Images & Words”

“Pull Me Under”

https://youtu.be/mipc-JxrhRk (official Video)