DREAM THEATER — Metropolis, Part 2: Scenes From a Memory (review)

DREAM THEATER — Metropolis, Part 2: Scenes From a Memory album cover Album · 1999 · Progressive Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Warthur
Dream Theater make something of a comeback on Metropolis Part II: Scenes From a Memory, which also sees Jordan Rudess join the band on keyboards. With three quarters of Liquid Tension Experiment onboard, you expect a certain level of technical flashiness, and this used to turn me off of the album, since I thought they took their technicality a little too far and indulged in showing off for the sake of showing off.

However, on relistening to and gaining a new appreciation of Dream Theater's back catalogue, I'm happy to admit I was wrong: in fact, Dream Theater have a fantastic knack for making sure their technical playing always serves a purpose in reinforcing the tone of the story or the individual songs and conveying emotion through them.

Another thing which had previously annoyed me was some of the religious perspectives explored through the lyrics and overall plot, with The Spirit Carries On typically annoying me. I freely admit that this might be a side effect of the darker side of this multi-incarnational cosmic murder mystery evading me on previous listens, which lends a certain irony to that song which counterbalances some of its sappier implications.

Possibly I have simply gained more appreciation of the theatrical in music, because this is very much a narrative concept album with all that implies - but whilst many such albums end up compromising the music in order to serve the needs of the narrative, here Dream Theater do a fantastic job of allowing the narrative and music to mutually support each other without either needing to compromise. Given how many other narrative concept albums have struggled with this in the past, that's a major achievement.
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