| Dream Theater - Black Clouds & Silver Linings
This album just came out today. I am a HUGE Dream Theater fan and I've been looking forward to the follow-up to Systematic Chaos (their best album since Scenes From A Memory IMO).
I've only listened to the album twice so far so my opinions on it aren't fully formed. Here are my first thoughts:
A Nightmare to Remember - great opener, very riffy and very heavy; I'm not a fan of death metal at all and Portnoy does decent amount of wicked fast double bass and that one-handed crazy ride/snare work that hear a lot in that genre - I'm not crazy about it; Portnoy also needs to stop singing verses sometimes because his part in this song is terrible; these complaints are pretty minor for a 16-minute song
A Rite of Passage - good song, keeps the momentum from the first track going; the chorus has an epic, melodic feel to it which is good; Rudess has an awesome keyboard solo in it, I love when he gets weird
Wither - not much to say about this one; it's sort of like how Vacant was for Train of Thought; quiet, slow track
The Shattered Fortress - continuation of Portnoy's epic; I think this one borrows far too many melodies and rhythms from previous parts of the epic, but at least it doesn't take too much work to be familiar with the song because of it
The Best of Times - this is the stand-out track for me; very dynamic and great musicianship; really tasteful playing from Petrucci; not surprised if this one ends up being my favorite on the album
The Count of Tuscany - the grand 19-minute track; the instrumental section in the beginning is phenomenal (vocals don't come in until almost 4:30), lots of time signature changes and changes in rhythm/feel; this whole track is really the prog-goodness you expect out of DT | 