DREAM THEATER — Black Clouds & Silver Linings (review)

DREAM THEATER — Black Clouds & Silver Linings album cover

Album · 2009 · Progressive Metal

5/5 · 2011-01-04
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The premise is this, Dream Theater is one of the biggest names of the progressive metal genre and Black Clouds and Silver Linings is their tenth album. It's next in a long string of really exceptional and consistent progressive metal albums and very easily the band's best since Metropolis pt 2: "Scene From a Memory", which came out in 1999. It doesn't quite top that album but let me assure you, it has a real good go at it!

Dream Theater is one band that just keeps getting better and better. There's a lyric on here within the closing near twenty minute epic The Count of Tuscany: "All the finest wines improve with age", and it seems so does Dream Theater! But anyway I guess that's enough of the fanboyism and time to talk about the album proper.

The first thing I want to say from the off is what you're reading now is actually a heavily edited review for two reasons. The lesser reason is that my writing skill has improved in the couple of years since Black Clouds & Silver Linings was released (this is a 2011 edit, and at the time of writing this new paragraph you're reading now the band has just released their next album). The main reason though is that although everything you just read in the first two paragraphs (which remains unchanged) still stands, I don't actually regard this album quite as highly now as I did back when it was released. I still feel that this was at the time the best album since Metropolis pt. 2, but's it's not quite the absolute masterpiece that I originally thought it to be. This said, much of the original opinions in this review remain as they were, so we're not talking any major going off of the album, just a little weathering.

Black Clouds kicks off with the epic 16 odd minute opus A Nightmare to Remember, a true story about a car accident which Jorn Petrucci had as a kid. It's one of my personal favourites from the album. It is also noteworthy for more extensive use of Mike Portnoys more gutteral vocals as well as James LaBrie, who I might add sounds great on Black Clouds & Silver Linings. These are some of the best vocals LaBrie has put down in years.

Next are a couple of the shorter songs of the album, short meaning that they clock in at under the ten minute mark. The first of these is the album's lead single A Rite of Pasage. It's not my personal favourite from the album but I'm putting that down to my personal preference for the longer epics that Dream Theater offers on the album. It's a solid song and fits in well. Wither follows, it's the most commercial song on the album and the lighest but it is also very good and like A Rite of Passage fits in very well with the rest of the release. Though over 5 minutes in length its the shortest song the album has to offer.

The Shatterned Fortress is another favourite of mine and is the final part of Mike Portnoys's Alcoholic's Anonymous saga. It is like parts taken from the previous 4 songs in the series The Glass Prison, This Dying Soul, The Root of all Evil and Repentance all put together and then some new stuff thrown in for good measure. It's damn good and a great way to end the saga which, although split up over 5 albums, is essential one big song and when looked at like that it makes it a longer piece than even Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence. It's well worth a listen as such let me assure you.

The Best of Times is a tribute to Mike's late father. A solid song, but not a favourite of mine, (and this is really why I don't regard the album overall as much as I used to) despite the fact that it may be considered an epic with it's thirteen minute duration. If there is a weak link on Black Clouds this is - rather sadly considering the subject matter - it. However don't let that remark but you off because this isn't a bad song at all, I'm just trying to be neutral about the album since fanboy ravings will help no one.

The Count of Tuscany is the third of my favourite and it is nearly 20 minutes in length. As the main album's last track it does a good job of ending the album. It's another true story from Petrucci's past. This is easily the finest track on the album and when it starts the slightly poorer The Best of Times is just forgotten.

Black Clouds & Silver Linings is all things considered one of Dream Theater's best albums, even if it hasn't weathered quite as well as I'd have thought. For the three main epics and general consistency though the album is worth an exceptional score.

Now for some notes on the special edition content:

Covers disc that comes in some editions isn't bad either. My personal favourite of the covers is Iron Maiden's To Tame a Land, a song Dream Theater felt needed reviving in some way since Maiden don't play it live, a sentiment I agree with.

Can't say I bother with the instrumental disc, I like the vocals too much, but its there if anyone is that way inclined, since the music alone is awesome too.

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven, scored at 9.0/10 - "Very Exceptional Album" - updated September 2011)