When you suck the soul out of music and inject pure liquid cheese this is what you get. I gave this band and this album a chance, against every fibre of my being I had to battle to force myself to listen objectively and form an unbiased opinion.
I couldn't do it, I couldn't make it through they are my musical kryptonite. In my holy church of music they are satan himself rampaging, killing, raping - they are the one band above all others I love to hate.
Where to begin, James LaBrie's vocals sounds like a piece of wilted lettuce. The keyboards sound like early 90's MIDI sounds straight out of an old PC game (not in the good way either). I mean these guys have sold millions of albums so they MUST have enough money to afford some decent synths and keyboards but instead they CHOOSE to use awful tacky ones. And then there is the loathsome John Petrucci who when he's not doing some awful thug chug riffing is doing some ultra-lame lightspeed sweep picking solo. On the plus side the other guys aren't so offensive. Mike Portnoy is alright I guess, just a boring Neil Peart wannabe and then there's that bassist guy who doesn't do a lot.
The instrumental track 'dances of eternity' is a great example of why I think this band are awful. Sure technical and progressive can be great but this is just forced and completely misguided. I mean pianee breakdowns followed by a shred solo, followed by a bass solo followed by 2 dozen riffs that don't flow into each other and make no sense? - seriously, did they teach you that at Berklee? All it needed was LaBrie to come in with some girly man vocals and it would probably be my most hated track of all time.
I am entirely unapologetic about hating this band and this release. Every good music fan needs one band they can truly loathe and sit back and laugh at every now and again.
If you don't love cheesy music then avoid this at all costs.