Dream Theater - Distance Over Time (Review)

Unfortunately, the names of many artistic personalities eventually turn into a brand, not a guarantee of high art. For music critics, each new release of famous metal bands is a reason for discussions on such topics. And today I will tell about epic release of famous band.

My Rating: 84/100     Best Song: Pale Blue Dot

About Dream Theater said enough before I was born. However, even in the new album there are interesting things. If I described every thing worth attention, then I would get about 30,000 characters (with the usual length of 3000 - 3500). However, the first thing you notice is a very epic general idea. Everything is so epic here that you can write a lot of words about each song. Especially about the song Pale Blue Dot, which was probably inspired by that famous photograph of Earth from Saturn. However, there is also something more poppy here. I also listened to a version from Spotify with a bonus track. The bonus track was not understood by me.

Composer's work is excellent. Here are very well chosen methods for solving artistic tasks. It's noticeable that a lot of attention was paid to instrumental parts. Very, very much attention. Complexity and simplicity are wonderfully interwoven with emotions, resulting in epic constructions. We have to admit that composer is a true master of his craft. Even not the most successful songs (5 and 6 tracks) and frank quickie (10 track) sound great.

But about vocalist can be said a little. It's noticeable that vocalist perfectly performed his work - voice is quite strong. But in the end, it looks a bit weird. As if vocalist just walked up to microphone and did his job. How else to explain the weak variety of vocals with such a long experience?

Instrumental parts - there is a lot of room for thought, but, unfortunately, for this one blog entry will not be enough. However, first of all I would like to mention the guitarist. Usually, after name “John Petrucci” everything becomes clear - a guitarist of such a high level cannot do something bad. And this is reflected in album: guitar parts - this is something incredible that is difficult to describe with the help of words. Moreover, this atmosphere of “something incredible” is felt in every segment of each song. There are interesting riffs on extended range guitar and long guitar solos. Bassist is great too. Bass is hard to hear in the mix, but you can still see very interesting bass lines here. In some songs the bass has a very strong attack and this gives the songs a special charm. Keyboards - here there are interesting parts of organ in tracks 7 and 9. Also, track 8 consists almost entirely of a piano. Otherwise, I expected more. Drums - I also expected more. But there is still an interesting set of rhythms.

To say “this is just good work” means to insult such a great talent and experience. But it seems that these guys are stuck somewhere in the 90s: not at all parts it looks like classical metal, and the modern patterns here are not presented in the best light. Perhaps the readers will think that I was brought up at mallcore and I can not objectively describe such releases. But one thing is certain: Dream Theater has long been a brand. Work of these guys is excellent, but we already heard this in the 90s. And riffs on extended range guitars don't greatly complement this picture. Well, the work is done.