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New Dream Theater Album Out June 23


Dyne
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So, I get the blog on MySpace from Dream Theater, so I get news like the new album a lot. Makes for a happy me. Anyways, their new album, Black Clouds and Silver Linings comes out in June, on the 23rd. Six tracks, which I'm assuming are LONG as hell. So, it should be epic.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 13, 2009

New York, NY:

Progressive metal veterans DREAM THEATER have announced BLACK CLOUDS & SILVER LININGSas the title of their tenth studio album. The band commenced work on the album – their second for Roadrunner Records, following up 2007's Systematic Chaos— in October of last year.

Roadrunner will release the record on June 23. In addition to the standard version CD, the album will also be available on vinyl LP, as well as a 3-disc Special Edition CD

that will include the full album, a CD of instrumental mixes of the

album and a CD of six cover songs, the titles of which will be revealed

at a later date.

Six weeks prior to the June 23 street date, Roadrunner will release one cover song per week through digital retailers.

Drummer Mike Portnoy and guitarist John Petrucci are once again at the helm as producers, while Paul Northfield mixed the record.

The

band will embark on a world tour in support of the album beginning in

Europe throughout June which will be followed by the second edition of

the band’s PROGRESSIVE NATION tour featuring Zappa Plays Zappa, Pain Of Salvation and Beardfish throughout North America in July/August.

A video for the first single, "A Rite of Passage" will be shot in late March.

The track listing for BLACK CLOUDS & SILVER LININGSis as follows:

1. A Nightmare to Remember

2. A Rite of Passage

3. Wither

4. The Shattered Fortress

5. The Best of Times

6. The Count of Tuscany

This release statement is also on their official web site along with the album art.

http://www.dreamtheater.net/news_dreamtheater.php#bcsl

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I don't know about Beardfish or Zappa...

...but all of you definitely need to check out the other band, Pain of Salvation. They're like the next best thing. I never even saw them touring with DT so it was pretty fucking kick ass when I found out.

EDIT: Erm this is for this summer's Progressive Nation Tour for those who don't know

It's headed by DT and guests Beardfish, Zappa plays Zappa, and Pain of Salvation.

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Am I the only one who was a little disappointed by System of Chaos? It had cool songs, but I found it just didn't live up to the past 4 albums. Also I felt it had this St. Anger "lets-just-go-to-the-studio-and-jam" vibe to it, instead of having past albums' concepts gluing it together.

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To be fair, Systematic Chaos is better than Six Degrees and Octavarium (Even IF Octavarium's title track is one of their best works)

Besides, no Dream Theater album will ever live up to Images and Words. After Scenes From A Memory, Dream Theater albums were just great, not amazing (save for the glorious Train of Thought album).

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Apparently DT's new album will have gothic elements?

I'll be interested in seeing what they come up with. I used to be a big fanboy, I used to really be into prog metal, but I just keep transitioning from one thing to another. Musical journey, ya know : | Another big thumbs up for Pain of Salvation, mentioned by Luke earlier.

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Here's my ranking of the Dream Theater albums:

When Dream and Day Unite (1989) - Awful production, but what do you expect, it's their first album. For some reason it just doesn't sound like they had all of their ingredients in the melting pot in the right amounts. Vocals are awful.

Best song: Afterlife

Worst song: Status Seeker

Images & Words (1992) - Not bad. Not the end-all be-all people make it out to be. The mellower tracks drag down what is otherwise a high-energy album. Some nice riffs.

Best song: Learning to Live

Worst song: Another Day

Awake (1994) - Here we go, now things are starting to warm up. After two "alright" albums, they finally hit it out of the park. This is their biggest foray into prog-metal yet (and they'd go further as time went on). 7 string guitar is featured heavily throughout the album (something Petrucci would continue as time went on as well). Almost every song is stellar, though there is still some filler.

Best song: Lie (tie) Space-Dye Vest

Worst song: The Silent Man

A Change of Seasons (1995) - Moar 7 string guitar! Title track is just AMAZING (it was originally written on a 6 string in the 1980s, if you haven't heard that version you're not missing out on anything). At 23 minutes the title track never feels like it's "dragging" (something that some later epics can't say). Unfortunately, outside of the title track, most of the rest of the album is very boring.

Best song: A Change of Seasons

Worst Song: Entire rest of the album

Falling into Infinity (1997) - uh... let's move on (Hell's Kitchen is pretty much the only solid track)

Metropolis Part II: Scenes from a Memory (1999) - Certainly MUCH better than Falling into Infinity, but still plagued with those "mellow" tracks that come off as cheesy, corny, and simply serve to slow the momentum down.

Best song: Hard to choose, there are a lot of REALLY good ones. Beyond This Life maybe.

Worst song: Through Her Eyes. What the FUCK?

Six Degrees of Innter Turbulence (2002) - Fairly solid album, but again tracks permeate that just slow down whatever momentum builds. Glass Prison is probably one of their best 7 string songs of all time (Gigantour version is GREAT if you haven't seen it). War Inside My Head is uncharacteristically short but fun.

Best song: Glass Prison

Worst song: Goodnight Kiss

Train of Thought (2003) - Holy shit. Awesome. Amazing. Great. Fantastic. They dabbled in prog-metal before, but this is the first time they went balls out and did an entire prog-metal album (beforehand it was prog-rock mostly). Every track is listenable all the way through (save for one...), and features both 7 string guitar and downtuned 6 strings for the first time. Only thing to get past is the Labrie rapping in Honor Thy Father

Best song: Stream of Consciousness

Worst song: Vacant (surprisingly not TERRIBLE for a slow song)

Octavarium (2005) - A real divider. People who were upset with Train of Thought's metal-edge bitched and moaned, so out came Octavarium to placate them. Unfortunately it felt as if Dream Theater were regressing to a point that they didn't even want to be at themselves, so it can come off as half-assed. Some good songs throughout (These Walls, Panic Attack), whilst the title track is boring and meanders.

Best song: Panic Attack

Worst song: Octavarium

Systematic Chaos (2007) - MUCH much better than Octavarium. Leaning back to prog-metal as they seem to prefer, they ALMOST hit it out of the park with this but fell short in a few clear areas. First of all, the lyrics are absolutely attrocious. We've had cheese from DT lyrically, but this one just takes the fucking cake. Fortunately musically, it's pretty dang good. In The Presence of Enemies combined as intended is a FANTASTIC aural journey. Forsaken has some nice ideas but the lyrics kill it dead. Constant Motion is a nice standard-tuned distraction that serves its purpose. The Dark Eternal Night is musically interesting and fun to listen to, but the lyrics my god.

Reptentence contineus Portnoy's 12 step saga pretty well.

Best song: In The Presence of Enemies (part 1 & 2)

Worst song: Prophets of War

So that's my analysis.

edit: tl;dr

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Well, despite what you say, other people like Dream Theater, and that's just how it is. The funny thing is, the more you talk trash on them, the more I think you like them Edge. So, there is it.

Worst live band ever, even worse than In Flames. Horrible stage prescence, long boring drawn out songs. Half of the floor for the show left the floor and was gone for the whole set.

Cd wise, long drawn out songs. Even more boring than St. Anger. In fact, recording wise, the only thing they did that is even halfway decent is, of all things, bootleg album covers such as Master Of Puppets etc. As I've said before, the band lives up to their name, as they put your ass to sleep.

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I don't know about Beardfish or Zappa...

...but all of you definitely need to check out the other band, Pain of Salvation. They're like the next best thing. I never even saw them touring with DT so it was pretty fucking kick ass when I found out.

EDIT: Erm this is for this summer's Progressive Nation Tour for those who don't know

It's headed by DT and guests Beardfish, Zappa plays Zappa, and Pain of Salvation.

I actually enjoy them more than Dream Theater. I find their music more verstaile and emotional, and the lyrics vastly better. Definetly not for everyone though. I couldn't get into BE(one of their albums)before having heard it in it's entirety 5-10 times.

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I'm not the only one who likes Pain of Salvation? Sweet! And yes I definetley agree with you Flare on BE. I have to agree that PoS has better lyrics, definitely, and I have a friend who likes them more than DT too.

As for Nekofrog...

You know by now that I think Images and Words is in fact it's the best album ever, but your taste is heavier than mine anyway, so eh whatever (personally I like the mellow stuff a lot). Train of Thought I 100% agree with you though, my personal second favorite (maybe my second favorite album ever), though my favorite song from the album is EASILY EASILY Endless Sacrifice. Also I don't like Octavarium as an album very much either, but I gotta say, the title track is one of their best songs, sorry :(. And yes, I've seen the Gigantour version of The Glass Prison, and it's amazing.

Question for Nekofrog (or anyone else): what did you think of the song "Scarred"?

That's the only Dream Theater song I can't get into at all. It's so damn WEIRD.

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