DREAM THEATER — Systematic Chaos (review)

DREAM THEATER — Systematic Chaos album cover

Album · 2007 · Progressive Metal

2/5 · 2011-06-17
Diogenes

Dream Theater are incredibly frustrating to me. They are obviously a very talented band, and in the past they have written some very good material, but since the late 90's they have been progging so hard I can't listen to any of their albums in one sitting unless I'm doing something else. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence was too boring (I never understood the hype that album gets), Train of Thought was too weird and Octavarium was too mediocre. Now this...this album follows in the same path, unfortunately. If I had to pick one word to describe Systematic Chaos, it would be "overdone". It is strange that I would come to this conclusion, because this was supposed to be Dream Theater's attempt at being more "modern" (thank you Roadrunner) and accessible. Honestly, there is definitely a difference between Systematic Chaos and earlier Dream Theater material, but there isn't much improvement. At all.

Basically, the problem here is that there is a lot going on, sure, but not much of it is any good. The "throw shit against the wall and see what sticks" idea is fun in theory, but it doesn't work when you are actually recording something and releasing it. Take a gander:

Example 1: A progressive rock/metal band starts one of their albums with “Song Title, Part 1, really long” and ends it with “Song Title, Part 2, also really long”, with all of the songs in the middle having nothing to do with the first and last one(s). Sound familiar? It's like Roadrunner said, "make it modern and METAL!" but then Portnoy said "Butbutbut! We need to show MORE Pink Floyd influence, since the first 5 minutes of Octavarium and entire Dark Side of the Moon Bootleg were not enough!" so then they came to a compromise to make a modern metal Pink Floyd song. Does that sound like a good idea? No, of course it doesn't. Of course, I'm kidding, but "In the Presence of Enemies" would work a whole lot better if they just trimmed out the fat and made it into one song.

Example 2: “The Ministry of Lost Souls”. It’s a very emotional song. Yes, Dream Theater writing an emotional song. That happens, like, never. The first 7 minutes of it are among my favorite 7 minutes in the Dream Theater discography. They are filled with sweet melodies and good vocals. Yes, a Dream Theater song with good vocals. You read that right. But what’s this? A riff that sounds nothing like the first few? And now the keyboards are going boop-boop-beep-bop-boop-beep-bop! Look, Petrucci is shredding over another riff that has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE REST OF THE SONG! And just like that, precious minutes of your life have been wanked away in typical Dream Theater fashion. Long story short, trim out some more fat.

Example 3: “Repentance”. Trim out the fat. Again. Like, the whole song. It’s useless, save for the fact that it adds another 10 minutes to the Portnoy alcoholism series. See that amazing list of guest musicians up there? Mikael Akerfeldt? Steven Wilson? Steve Vai? Yeah, they’re just talking in this song. You can’t even understand half of them, since two of them are talking at once. Another bad idea.

Example 4: Say what you will about James LaBrie, but I think he’s a pretty good vocalist. Apparently, Mike Portnoy doesn’t agree with me, because he insists on putting his own vocals in places where they are simply not needed. Of course, LaBrie’s voice doesn’t work in half of these songs anyway because they are either too heavy for him to sing in and sound good, or they don’t need his vocals at all because the rest of the band is going on another wankfest (see “The Dark Eternal Night”).

Now, for the praise paragraph. Ah yes. Obviously, this album isn’t total rubbish, or else I wouldn’t even bother reviewing it, or would have given it .5 stars saying something like "Dream Theater has not been good since Awake/Scenes from a Memory, Kevin Moore was the heart and soul of this band!" or something equally as douchy. “Constant Motion” is a good song. Whoever says it sounds like Metallica is off their rocker because the riffs are tighter than any riff Metallica has written in 23 years and the drums are tighter than anything Lars can dream of playing. As a matter of fact, most of the riffs in this album are very good, no matter how out of place they may be. “Forsaken” isn’t bad, either, showing how YOU CAN WRITE A GOOD SONG WITHOUT PUTTING IN AN EXTRA FIVE MINUTES OF POINTLESS SOLOING. Ahem. It might seem sort of poppy, but it’s well-written. I love when bands focus on writing good songs. It tickles my soul.

Imagine that your supper is this big pot roast. You haven’t eaten in what seems like forever, and your mother tells you that this particular pot roast will be way better than the last one she made (the meat from that one was from the grocery store. This one is from a butcher). Obviously, you are very hungry, and delve into the roast immediately once it is set in front of you. But to your dismay, you find that with the meat and veggies are things such as black olives and bits of tuna fish. Yes, the meat is delicious, but how on earth can you enjoy that delicious roast with those weird things floating around in the mix? Yes, you could pick out the wayward pieces of food, but wouldn’t you rather your mother just followed the recipe correctly and not experiment this much? Yes, I would have too.

more than 2 years ago
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Coffin Joe wrote:

more than 2 years ago

We agree to disagree :D I think it's a great album

Diogenes wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Well, we all have our own personal tastes, but...man, I don't know about that one! :)

Time Signature wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I quite like this album - but, of course, I love black olives and tuna ;-)

Xaxaar wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Yeah, I agree. Not the biggest DT fan to start off, but can't see how they can create such an epic song as Octavarium and then right after make, well, this.