Review Summary: Comeback of the year it might not be, but the return of Mike Portnoy to the band has resulted in the most refreshed and focused music that Dream Theater has released in quite some time.
It's actually shocking just how easy it is to underestimate what a big part of Dream Theater that Mike Portnoy is. In the halcyon days of Dream Theater, Mike Portnoy was the “grit" of the band; he was the man who brought out the human side, be it his more personal and introspective lyricism that covered a wide range of topics from alcoholism and drug addiction to mental health to even family quarrels, or how, for all his technical proficiency, he absolutely loved to get in those deep groove pockets every now and then, Mike Portnoy was that part of the band who kept them grounded. He had a sense of humour and self-awareness that the other band members didn't have, and more importantly, it was hard not to get the idea that the band had fun in his presence. So in 2010, when he announced his departure from the band, this wasn't just any “band member leaves" situation; his absence was absolutely apparent in the work that followed. That isn’t to discredit the work the band did with Mike Mangini- in fact, a lot of said work is pretty good, at times even GREAT. Quite a bit of material from the Mangini era deserves to stand with the likes of
Octavarium and
Six Degrees. It's just that there is a clear dichotomy (I'd argue clearer now more than ever, but we'll get to that in a bit) between Portnoy-era Dream Theater and Mangini-era Dream Theater. What Dream Theater may have gained in more technical skill and razor-sharp precision in their instrumentation, they unfortunately lost in the more human side of their music. It's certainly hard not to admire some of the crazy “Jesus H. Christ did he really play that" flattery they earned with some of that material, but it was at the expense of a core part of what made Dream Theater such a household name to begin with.
Despite this, it ironically goes without saying that although said core part may be back, Dream Theater's first album with Mike Portnoy,
Parasomnia, isn’t the comeback that people may be expecting. And if anything, that makes it an even better record than it has a right to be. Sure, Mike Portnoy is back. Sure, a number of aspects that weren't present when he wasn't in the band have returned with him. But the band have made the wise decision to not make this a nostalgia bait affair, and instead use old elements to go in a new direction completely. In fact, it's pretty obvious from the opening track alone, the instrumental overture “In the Arms of Morpheus", that you're not in Kansas anymore: the album begins with the sounds of busy city streets, and the sound of someone shutting everything down for the night and settling into bed for his beauty rest. Alarm clocks, a
Jaws-style riff and the sound of the man taking a final sigh before he drifts off to sleep ensue, and out of nowhere, a djenty riff steamrolls over us into what must be some pretty terrifying dreams this man has. And from there on ensues 71 minutes of some of the most thematically consistent material Dream Theater has released since
Octavarium- and some of their freshest music yet.
What's truly great about
Parasomnia is that it feels like the band is just having a blast making it. The Dream Theaterisms are there- crazy noodling and dizzying solos abounds, atmospheric keyboards and moments of camp and genre switching, John Myung's ever-so-tasty basslines, and soaring LaBrie vocals- but they all seem to be expressed more passionately than ever. The band haven't sounded this energetic in quite some time, and it leads to new kinds of “moments" from the band. To name just one example, “A Broken Man" spends the majority of its runtime being a crushingly heavy and fantastic belter of a tune, but in the last three minutes it slides into a jazzy section reminiscent of Liquid Tension Experiment. It's an unexpected, but welcome surprise after the previous five minutes of music have established a tense and unrelenting atmosphere. Likewise, “Dead Asleep" exists purely on one absolutely FAT groove that the band hasn't had in quite some time, which is one of its biggest strengths, in addition to having some truly fantastic, dark sounding riffs. And boy, if you missed those weird fills that Mike Portnoy used to pull back in the day, clearly the band is right there with you; lead single “Night Terror" truly kicks in with a set of them. I could sit here and name a whole bunch of these little “parts” that the rest of the review, but it would take up the entire review- point being that it's been a while since Dream Theater has released an album full of truly memorable moments and aspects that you could pick apart in quite some time. Easily the crown jewel of the entire piece however goes to “The Shadow Man Incident", the band's most exciting epic in years. The “obligatory 20 minute epic" has been a staple of the band's discography for the past 20 years now, and here we have the most exiciting and musically consistent one since “The Count of Tuscany". At 19 minutes long, the song never once feels like it slows down or lets up. Though it takes its time setting things up, at one certain point in the first half, the song just floors the pedal and doesn't take its foot off the gas until the song is over. Complete with dizzying tempo changes, style switches, even genre changes (the song at one point calls back to “In the Name of God" by switching to a Latin groove!), it's impossible to be bored listening to this song. It becomes clear almost immediately how much fun they had making it, and it'll remain long in your head after the point where you hear a hoarse-voiced man whisper in your ear, “wake up!” and the sound of an alarm clock.
Thematically, the band decides to take a “loose concept" approach in the same vein as
Octavarium and base the theme of the album around the strange dreams and sensations of a man with a disturbed sleep pattern. As I previously mentioned, the album starts with its protagonist drifting off to sleep, and from there we experience the stuff he goes through in a night- sleep paralysis (“Night Terror"), PTSD (“A Broken Man”), a crime committed in deep sleep (“Dead Asleep”), hallucinations (“The Shadow Man Incident"), and for the first time since
Octavarium, it's reflected in the music- the musical motifs that get introduced in tracks like “In the Arms of Morpheus" and “A Broken Man" are revisited numerous times over the course of the album. Also like
Octavarium, the album can be listened to and digested as a satisfactory experience either as one whole piece or separately as tracks. And that's another thing this album has over the band's more recent material: you can drop in at any point and not feel like you've missed anything important. Though on repeated listens, hearing things like the chorus vocal melody of “A Broken Man" bookending “Dead Asleep" (and capping off “The Shadow Man Incident") can feel a tad weird at times. Unlike
Octavarium, whose theme was represented by eight tracks ascending an octave (and interludes representing sharp and minor keys), the recurring sound effects and callbacks to the intro to “Morpheus" are what bookends it. Obviously nobody listens to Dream theater albums for themes, but it doesn't quite feel as fleshed out as
Octavarium, which can pose an issue for someone trying to keep track.
Either way, though,
Parasomnia is the freshest Dream Theater has sounded in years. The return of Mike Portnoy to the band has resulted in some of the most focused sounding songwriting from the boys yet, and moreso, the actual
SONGS are back. It's nice for the first time in 14 years to hear an album that doesn't feel like it's written only for that small pocket of the fanbase who likes the crazy prog aspects first before the music, and that this album manages to find a balance between the two very well. And especially considering a number of comebacks/reunions lately (I’m looking at you, Linkin Park) that fail to truly capitalize on the hype in a way that's actually meaningful, Dream Theater’s reunion with Portnoy manages to actually do that while also using the classic elements in a completely different and new way altogether.
