Review Summary: Dream Theater does just enough to make a passable album, but it's a disappointment considering the band's potential.
The Journey Through Dream Theater, Part 10
Systematic Chaos is not looked upon too kindly compared to Dream Theater’s other works. Its general criticism stems from the lack of originality, wankery, and a very cold and calculated performance from the band. Unfortunately, all these criticisms are valid to an extent on
Systematic Chaos. While it’s certainly not as bad as some would claim, and does contain some standout moments, it’s definitely the worst output from the band since
Falling Into Infinity.
There is certainly some good to be found here.
In The Presence of Enemies Part 1 is one of the album’s strongest cuts, starting with a 5-minute instrumental that shifts between keyboard and guitar solos without getting too carried away. LaBrie’s performance in the last 4 minutes is decent enough, and overall it’s a good start to the album.
Constant Motion, which is notorious for its very obvious take on Metallica, is another highlight. It’s not original, but it’s just a fun track. LaBrie takes on a James Hetfield-esque vocal performance, and he does it well, although some will undoubtedly hate it for that very reason. The bridge is the best part, with a stylish solo from Petrucci.
Prophets of War shows the band taking on Muse, and it’s a great improvement over the last time the band did it (
Never Enough). It’s catchy, upbeat, and LaBrie’s voice fits very well this time.
The album has its downfalls, though. The lyrics on the album are downright awful at times.
Forsaken sounds like something that could appear on a Twilight soundtrack (although to its credit it’s obnoxiously catchy). Then there’s the band’s laughable attempt at writing dark lyrics in
The Dark Eternal Night and
In The Presence of Enemies Part 2. The latter contains multiple uses of the groan-inducing lyric of “Dark master within, I will fight for you”. The band hits an all-time low with lyrics on this album.
There are exceptions, of course.
Repentance is the strongest lyrical offering here, and for the first five-and-a-half minutes it does a great job continuing Portnoy’s AA saga, capped off with a great solo. Unfortunately, the second half of the song is incredibly boring and monotonous, and kills all potential the song had of being a highlight, choosing instead to test the listener’s patience.
This is another problem with the album, bloated songs. The band has made excellent songs in the past that were long and epic (
A Change of Seasons,
Octavarium,
The Glass Prison,
Home, etc…), but this time it just doesn’t work.
The Ministry of Lost Souls starts off well, with a nice, slow ballad approach to the first half, but it transitions into pointless wankery that, while being impressive and entertaining, doesn’t fit the song at all, existing as filler to increase the track’s running time. The aforementioned
In The Presence of Enemies Part 2 is easily one of the band’s worst closers, with a very unexciting buildup to the obligatory 5-minute instrumental, which is really the only highlight. One can only be thankful that the band didn’t combine the two parts and try to make it one 25-minute track like they had originally planned or it would have been even worse.
Systematic Chaos has an identity crisis. It wants to be accessible, it wants to be dark, it wants to be epic, it wants to be serious, and it wants to be fun, but it can’t consistently pull off all of these things; the band overextended themselves. They hit the mark some of the time, and sometimes their experiments fail, like Portnoy’s laughable “harsh” vocals on
The Dark Eternal Night. The album is hit-and-miss even within individual tracks. It’s fairly entertaining most of the time, which is certainly a plus, but it looks very weak when put up against the band’s stronger works.
It’s unoriginal and often bloated, and nowhere near what the band is capable of, but thanks to the band’s ability to entertain,
Systematic Chaos narrowly manages to be a passable effort by Dream Theater.
Top Tracks: In The Presence of Enemies Part 1, Constant Motion, Prophets of War
Dream Theater is:
• John Myung – Bass guitar
• John Petrucci – Lead guitar
• Mike Portnoy – Drums, Percussion
• Jordan Rudess – Keyboards
• James LaBrie – Vocals
To Be Continued…
