Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos

Progressive rock masters Dream Theater return in full force with their ninth studio album Systematic Chaos. The album features heavy riffs, soaring melodies, and intricate arrangements. Dream Theater appeases its loyal fans but also reaches out to all rock fans with hook-laden hits like "Constant Motion," "Forsaken," and "The Dark Eternal Night." Album Description

Now THIS, is music!

As a total Dream Theater fanatic who has seen the band five times in concert (including the 20th anniversary at radio city), as well as a musician myself - I must say that this is my favorite D.T. studio album so far.

For me, the high-point of the Disk is "The Ministry Of Lost Souls". It is a true masterpiece and an amazingly moving and beautiful song. Another one of my favorites is the two-part epic "In the Presence of Enemies". It is a typical, straight-up Dream Theater type song with great guitar playing and beautiful melodies.

This Album has somthing for everyone: a ballad, old-school metal, pop, Nu-metal (Forsaken) and your typical dramatic, complex progressive rock.

There is somthing else that I love about Dream Theater - besides the music itself. It is the fact that if you are a D.T. fan, your band doesn't dissapoint you. Almost every rock band ends up sucking a little more with each album; You never get what you really wanted. With D.T., I can honestly say that I have watched the band get better and better with each album. They have never let me down. If they are going to release a new album, I have confidence that it won't suck and when I see them live, I know that I will be blown away.

Once I started listening to Dream Theater, years ago, I found it hard to listen to mainstream rock. It just bores me. D.T. has elevated rock music to it's highest level so far. They are almost "beyond" rock music. For me, Dream Theater's music is more like great classical music - it's beautiful, profound and complexed, not just entertaing.

Until the day I die, I will never forget the time I saw Dream Theater live at Jones Beach, in the summer of 2007. It was the best concert experiance of my life; I practically floated out the arena afterwards. They sounded incredible and played some of my all-time favorite songs.


Thank you SO much Dream Theater, for working so hard to please your fans and for writting incredible music for the past 20 years. November 29, 2008

Give yourself up to me...

So, my story for this album is kind of an interesting one. I've been a fan of Dream Theater for many years now, but like many I was less than thrilled with the last couple of albums they put out. "Train of Thought" was boring, stale, and mechanical, and "Octavarium", while a much stronger effort, didn't really hold my interest for long. So, that sadly resulted in very low expectations for this album. In fact, I almost passed up on it entirely. However, after finally picking it up, many repeated listens, and an excellent live show last year, I am glad to say that they've really bounced back. This is by far the strongest album they've made in many years. Not their best by a longshot, but still a huge step up.

Like "Train of Thought", it's mostly pretty dark and heavy, but unlike that album, it's full of great diversity and interesting musicianship and songwriting. Bookended by the super-huge two-part epic "In the Presence of Enemies", it covers plenty of ground in-between. The album has a sort-of single in "Forsaken", which is crunchy goth-tinged metal. Plus the lyrics are about vampires, and vampires are always money in the bank (and Halloween's coming up, so don't forget to add it to your "monster mix"). "Constant Motion" is good and thrashy, with a lot of Metallica influence, and some more aggressive half-screamed/half-rapped vocals which Mike describes as them "turning into Biohazard". Pretty cool stuff.

"The Dark Eternal Night" is easily one of the most intense and experimental things they've ever done. Sounding like a mad cross between Mudvayne, Mr. Bungle, Machine Head, and Symphony X, it comes roaring from your speakers like the beastly creature its lyrics describe. This song was surprisingly good live too. I wasn't sure James would be able to pull off those vocals, but it wasn't half bad.

The next three songs chill things down a bit. "Repentance" is moody and atmospheric, and features cool spoken word bits from a lot of cool people, like Mikael Akerfeldt, Daniel Gildenlow, Corey Taylor, Neal Morse, and many others. "Prophets of War" is a really catchy Muse/Queen hybrid, with excellent politcal lyrics, and an awesome rap/spoken word interlude from Mike (maybe my suspicions were correct, and he and Aesop Rock are the same person after all...ok, maybe not). Anyway, despite being pretty blatanly derivative, it's a really fun song.

"The Ministry of Lost Souls" is perhaps my favorite of the album. It's huge and epic, with grand sweeping melodies, and some of the coolest and most emotional lyrics they've ever written. IMO, this is hands-down one of their best songs to date.

And finally we have the even bigger "In the Presence of Enemies". I have to admit, this song took a pretty long time to grow on me as a whole. There are some instrumental parts, mainly in part 2, that could probably stand to not be there, but overall this song has a lot of cool stuff. Heavier parts, softer parts, nifty chanting (fun for a live show, of course). It's not perfect, but it's a heck of a ride. Plus, John Petrucci proves again that he's one of few people who can write spiritual/religious themed lyrics that don't make me queasy.

Anyway, this is just a great effort on Dream Theater's part, and I really hope they keep this quality up for the next album. Ok, so they still sometimes go overboard on the instrumental stuff, and they still sometimes wear their influences much too blatantly on their sleeves, but overall this is excellent songwriting. If you've never liked Dream Theater before, this probably won't change your mind, but for the longtime fan there's plenty to enjoy. Also, the making-of DVD is worth checking out as well, with footage from the recording sessions, lots of interesting tidbits about the writing process (complete with James hilariously and unknowingly confusing telepathy with telekinesis), and of course Mike's usual goofy antics. All in all, a great buy.

Oh, and just a random thing: A while back, I read a review somewhere that said that with this album, they were attempting to appeal to the "mallcore crowd". Now, I've been out of high school for a few years now, and as such have mostly lost touch with said "mallcore crowd", but if they're now listening to 10-minute epics full of fast solos and odd time signatures, then things must have really changed. Who knew, huh? October 30, 2008

Dream Theater - Systematic Excellence

Dream Theater continues to be at the forefront of progressive metal. "Chaos" manages to take elements from classic progressive rock and imbibe them with modern updated production. Unlike some of their peers releases "Chaos" does not sound at all dated or stale. "Chaos" is along the same lines as "Train Of Thought" or "Awake" in that much of the album is heavy and aggressive. At times the band almost sounds like Pantera or Metallica in spots. The album is a nice mix of mid length tunes and long epics. The disc begins and ends with "In The Presence Of Enemies" which in total clocks in at right around 25 minutes. "Ministry Of Lost Souls" is another long one at 15 minutes. Both are really good. Other highlights include the single "Forsaken" which is a cool little well written song. "The Dark Eternal Night" and James Labrie's "Prophets Of War". Dream Theater continues to expand their audience as "Chaos" was the band's highest charting album ever. Older fans may not care for some of the nu-metal style of some of the tracks, but the band are technically as excellent as ever and get the chance to show off their chops throughout the disc. All in all this is another fine album from Dream Theater. September 18, 2008

I don't feel like dreaming to this stuff

Dream Theater sounds like a band that copied a bunch of other bands from many years before, such as Kansas, Rush, Iron Maiden, and Queensryche. Combine all those bands and you get Dream Theater.

While the songwriting on this album is pretty good, it's mostly worth giving a chance for the instrumental parts, which always move forward in a creative direction, and always evolve into different themes (sometimes radically different). I'm NOT impressed with the way the guitar playing more often than not heads in a generic direction that just about EVERY commercial rock band has done in the last 15 years.

The lyrics though... man, I just don't like the lyrics. They always feel contrived and uninteresting to me. The singer is questionable as well. His voice is alright, but his ability to create vocal melodies is lackluster most of the time.

Still, it's a decent effort. July 22, 2008

Never received this title!

I never received Systematic Chaos by Dream Theater!!!

I would like to know what happened to the order!!! July 1, 2008

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