Review Summary: An album that sounds like Train of Thought + Octavarium rehashed, more devoid of originality than any of its predecessors. The band's technical ability remains undoubted but the disc is so short on songwriting that for this band's standards it is quite a
Dream Theater is a band that has long managed to divide the metal community. While respected by most of their peers as talented and capable musicians, their tendency to lose themselves in over-the-top instrumental passages and sacrifice songwriting skills in the process has led them to be notoriously boring to the untrained listeners. Dream Theater discs generally take ages to digest, and with their new effort, Systematic Chaos, this is no different.
What strikes from the first moment here, however, is all the musical quotations from other bands in their music. Dream Theater wear their influences on their sleeve, even more obviously here than on the last one. In fact, you could play "spot the band" on this album and be busy for hours trying to find them all. In fact, some songs are so uncannily borrowing from other bands it's nearing plagiarism.
An example of this is Forsaken, which takes whatever Evanescence has been doing over the past few years to the max, and adds a solo for good measure. At about 2:48 in, James apes an Amy Lee vocal line perfectly, accompanied by a riff that is nearly identical to Fallen-era Evanescence stuff, which makes the song just a little too dodgy for me. Constant Motion relies heavily on Metallica-esque vocal lines and heavy riffs, plus a bonus synth sound to try to un-plagiarise it. MP, you get a bonus point for ripping off Metallica's good stuff, but a minus point for actually ripping off in the first place.
And as if one musical quotation is not enough, Repentance tries to be Porcupine Tree and Opeth at the same time, with Pink Floyd-esque spoken word samples to boot...featuring the captains of aforementioned bands. Not to mention the song recycles a melody line from This Dying Soul, and runs for almost ELEVEN ***ING MINUTES at that...are you guys running out of ideas? The Dark Eternal Night meshes even more different influences, ranging from Pantera/Lamb of God to... ragtime and vaudeville piano. The instrumental bridge completely and utterly contrasts the heavy aspect of the song, which starts out with a killer riff, but ends up losing credibility when Rudess tries to mellow down and play completely inappropriate keyboard solos in the middle.
Prophets of War is like a metal version of Muse, again reinforcing the idea that the band is losing steam and becoming short of new ideas. In the past, Dream Theater tried to do something different every album; but on almost every song here we can find something that's already been done before, and better to boot, by a different band. And it's only when they finally make a song that they can rightfully call their own, that they attain the glory of their former prog metal selves... were it not that those are the two epic songs, and they also happen to be extremely bloated and drawn out.
The Ministry of Lost Souls is a nice idea, with an excellent vocal performance from James LaBrie (who sounds totally fresh and reborn on this album), but at 15 minutes the combination of melodramatic riffs, cheesy lyrics and a way-too-long instrumental section in the middle is just too much to digest for the average listener. In The Presence of Enemies is the album's saving grace, again the lyrics are kind of lame and clichéd (a dark master? my cup overflows with my enemies' blood?), but the band comes rightfully into its own, combining heavy metal chugging with another stellar vocal performance. The instrumental ouverture is a bit long, but the whole song is one big nod to the famous Pink Floyd song split into two parts, and it seems to be a whole lot more relevant and well-placed as it introduces a musical theme that is recalled in the final ouverture. It's a pity that this, again, is something the band has done before.
And then we come back to the point at the beginning of this review. Dream Theater are incredibly technical and talented, and this album contains all the technical wizardry the band is famous for. It contains their heavy metal attitude, the long extended prog songs, a vocalist at the height of this game...so why does Dream Theater fall inimitably flat? Because after 20 years their songwriting skills haven't been honed. The band isn't original enough on here, a progressive band should experiment with new sounds, but it seems like the band has done it all before. If the next album is this bad, guys, I'd consider quitting. For a band that has been so great in the past, it would hurt to see the guys pull a Metallica and become a parody of themselves. In the meantime, we can only hope that the next album sounds a little more inspired.
