DREAM THEATER — Images and Words (review)

DREAM THEATER — Images and Words album cover

Album · 1992 · Progressive Metal

4/5 · 2010-05-06
Phonebook Eater

8/10

"Images & Words" is one of the finest releases of early progressive metal.

Prog metal fans argue of which one is the best prog metal album of all time, or Dream Theater fans would argue about the band's best album. Many fans of both would go for "Scenes From A Memory", however there are also quite a few that think "Images & Words" is the essential prog metal release. I use to love this album even more than I do now, and I did prefer it to SfaM, but now my opinion has changed slightly, and I tend to think of "Metropolis Pt.2" as the band's magnum opus. But "Images & Words" is no doubt one of the finest releases of early progressive metal, and one of the most important ones as well.

This is 1992, when Dream Theater are still a group of young people that have a pretty innovating metal sound mixed with some progressive, and become unexpectedly famous, to the point when the video of their single "Pull Me Under" is constantly played by MTV. If we think today of a prog metal song on MTV, it would be something that makes us smile, but if something like that would happen, every prog fan would turn against that band, because they think they would be selling out. But if "Pull Me Under" was never transmitted on MTV, Dream Theater would not be at the level of popularity that they are today.

Strictly musically speaking, "Images & Words" has less metal than any other DT album, it's the most sad but at the same time honest LP that I've ever heard in prog metal. What makes the difference from the following albums are the lush keyboards, many times recalling 80's synths or some nice moogy and proggy attitudes. The music, other than being "softer", is also more atmospheric in a way. Even the guitars have tons of effects, especially when clean, and they produce a sound that unfortunately the band almost never used again later in their career, perhaps because of the absence of the keyboardist Kevin Moore, who left DT after the third album "Awake". Even though this album may sound a little innocent, it still has moments of powerful force and, of course, mind blowing mid-sections of songs that could include some crazy time changes and wicked fast-paced solos. This last element however is not highlighted at all, which is why some of the band's haters who like progressive rock also tend to like this album at least a little bit. Because it has no excessiveness, it is perfectly balanced and extremely solid.

“Pull Me Under” is actually a great song, possibly one of DT’s best. It has great hooks, that turn up to be quite haunting, and great performances as well. The other two masterpieces of the album are the epically important “Metropolis Pt.1”, which has an amazing mid-section, and the eleven minutes of “Learning To Live”, a shape shifting piece that I used to not like as much, but it grew on me a lot. There is not one bad song off this LP really: “Another Day” and “Wait For Sleep” rank high among my favorite DT ballads, “Under A Glass Moon” has with “Metropolis” the most impressive musicianship. “Surrounded” is another pretty haunting piece, a nice half-ballad that is though the song I least prefer. But then they are songs like its previous “Take The Time” that make that not important ( I mean, it’s still a good song!) for the enjoyment of the album.

“Images & Words” other than being a great album, is an extremely important release for progressive metal’s development. If you love the genre and you haven’t listened to this, I recommend you do that as soon as possible, you’d have missed lot.