MetalSucks recently polled its staff to determine who are The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists, and after an incredible amount of arguing, name calling, and physical violence, we have finalized that list! The only requirements to be eligible for the list were that the musician in question had to a) play metal (duh), b) play guitar (double-duh), and c) have recorded something in the past five years. Today we continue our countdown with John Petrucci from Dream Theater and Liquid Tension Experiment…

Whether it’s the emotional David Gilmour-inspired bends, Hetfield-esque machine gun riffing or flat out blistering speed-sweeping, John Petrucci has always been not just a guitarist’s guitar player but a dynamic and engaging musician and composer with a wide array of styles. Whether it is within the confines of Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment, or his solo material, Petrucci’s chops have consistently varied greatly across the prog-metal spectrum, while also standing out amongst his shredding peers on multiple G3 Tours alongside the likes of fellow guitar gods Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert, and Eric Johnson.

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A quick catch-up sesh for anyone who’s not a DT fanboy like me: YtseJam Records is Dream Theater’s own label imprint they’ve been using for years to release official bootlegs of live recordings. “YtseJam” is “Majesty” backwards; again, for the non-fanboys, Majesty was their original band name.

OK, now onto the drama! A fan recently asked via Mike Portnoy’s official message board what would become of YtseJam now that Mike’s out of the DT picture. Fair question, right? Portnoy handled most of the business for pretty much every aspect of DT, so it would stand to reason that YtseJam would be effected by his departure. Portnoy — who has an astonishing 1394 posts on his own message board (!!) — took to answering the question himself. It’s the 7th post down at this link. Quote:

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While we were gone for the holidays, Mike Portnoy asked to re-join Dream Theater after being let go by Avenged Sevenfold, surprising no one. We’ve stated our case for siding with Portnoy in this whole ridiculous public drama, but it seems awfully hypocritical of Portnoy to ask back in so soon after everything that’s gone down. Dream Theater accordingly rebuffed Mike, as they should have. Meanwhile, rumors have been flying around about Marco Minnemann being the new Dream Theater drummer, a story which we were the first to report several weeks back.

Portnoy for his part is staying busy; Metal Insider reports that he’s announced a new project with guitarist Steve Morse (Deep Purple, Dixie Dregs), multi-instrumentalist Neal Morse (Transatlantic, Spock’s Beard), bassist Dave LaRue (Dixie Dregs) and vocalist Casey McPherson (Alpha Rev, Endochine) with recording commencing shortly. That should be pretty effin’ cool and nertastically progariffic.

But in the meantime the big question on Dream Theater fans’ minds is: what will the next Dream Theater record sound like?? Will it be any good? Was Portnoy the mojo that kept the band going or was he dead weight??? John Petrucci just tweeted that the band is now in the studio, so I’m assuming that they’re writing the record on-the-fly again as they have with the past several releases.

What do you think about a new DT record?? Weigh in below.

When Mike Portnoy announced he would be leaving Dream Theater, many of you speculated in our comments section that drum great Marco Minneman (who played in Necrophagist for a while, among countless other musical endeavors) might be on the shortlist of potential replacements. The following is of course completely reckless speculation and nothing other than conjecture, but a recent announcement has given at least a shred of credence to the possibility that Minnemann might be the man to warm Protnoy’s drum throne until he and the band mutually decide it’s time for him to come back.

Reader Dean Ferro sent us this link earlier this week, announcing a collaboration between DT keyboardist Jordan Rudess and Minnemann:

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Now that I’ve had a good 24 hours to process the news that Mike Portnoy has quit Dream Theater, I’m ready to opine on it. And my opinion can be summed up thusly:

RUFKM????

No, no… obviously it’s way more complex than that. Allow me to elaborate.

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…I saw this video of British seventeen year-old Jacqueline Mannering on Metal Insider. MI says she’s gained prominence recently due to some tweets by Ashton Kutcher, who, when he’s not acting as cougar fodder, is apparently thinking about shtupping underage girls. (He compared Mannering to Penelope Cruz, which is… just wrong, dude.)

But this is the metal world, where anyone with musical talent or a vagina is equally worshiped by hordes of drooling fanboys. And since Mannering has both, I’m sure she there’s lots of big things in store for her.

Check out video of Mannering absolutely decimating John Petrucci’s solo from Dream Theater’s “As I Am” at Metal Insider.

-AR

It’s not that I think that the members of Napalm Death and Dream Theater have a limited musical palette. Quite the contrary; I’d imagine the musicians that make up these particular bands probably have very diverse tastes.

Still. If I found out that Alex Webster listened to a lot of Roni Spektor, I wouldn’t expect a collaboration between the Russian chanteuse and the death metal legend, y’know?

So. Tom Fassnidge sent us this video of Napalm Death’s Barney Greenway teaming up with some of the dudes from Dream Theater to cover Metallica’s “Damage Inc.” It’s an old video – lookit Barney’s hair!!! – but neither Vince nor myself had ever seen it before. And it’s pretty awesome – look at how much fun Petrucci and Portnoy are having! And, yes, I know that DT have covered entire Metallica albums live in concert before. But it’s the “WHAT THE FUCK IS A MEMBER OF NAPALM DEATH DOING UP THERE?” of it all that makes this video truly worthwhile, in my opinion at least.

Extra bonus: for those of us who find James LaBrie to be a big gaping vagina, we now get to see what DT might be like with singer who isn’t a eunuch.

-AR

Most Dream Theater fans consider the band’s peak to have spanned the era starting with 1994′s Awake and extending through 2002′s double-disc opus Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (excepting 1997′s bland and boring Falling Into Infinity). I’d actually argue that the band’s “golden” era extended one album further through Train of Thought, unquestionably the band’s heaviest offering ever, if not just because of the good songwriting but for the fact that this was the last album on which the band pushed themselves forward. Since then (Octavarium, Systematic Chaos) Dream Theater have settled into cruise control, pumping out decent but ultimately unspectacular prog metal albums that don’t so much tread new ground as walk confidently atop terrain already explored. The band’s latest, Black Clouds and Silver Linings, continues in this vein; it’s the third album in a row to show little to no musical progression (isn’t this supposed to be “progressive” metal?) and as such ends up feeling mostly same-sounding and… meh. Still, it’s hard to knock anything Dream Theater do too heavily; the band already indelibly changed the metal landscape once, and anything they do warrants at the very least a rating of “pretty good.”

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Watch ex-Necrophagist drummer Marco Minnemann go nuts on the kit. Sick. As in both “holy shit is this guy amazing” and “the quick camera cuts and pans are making my stomach ill (more feet and hand closeups please!).” But still… This ought to be enough to make any aspiring drummers in the MS readership consider putting down the sticks for good, the way I get all depressed and never want to touch my guitar again every time I see John Petrucci play live.

-VN

[Thanks: Jess Z.]

So I totally snoozed yesterday on the fact that After The Burial’s new album Rareform was finally released. If you guys haven’t checked out After the Burial yet, I highly recommend you do so this instant; it’s like Meshuggah’s rhythm section decided to have a three-way with John Petrucci and Bloodjinn vocalist Joel Collins. The results are phenomenal, striking that ever-delicate balance of musicianship and songwriting. It’s some truly invigorating shit! Seriously; more bands should be this good.

After the Burial will be out on this summer’s Thrash and Burn Tour (with Darkest Hour), so if you’re planning on hitting that up be sure to get there early… And let us know how they are live. In the meantime listen to the three songs from Rareform posted on their MySpace, and prepare to be be bludgeoned.

-VN

[After the Burial on MySpace]

And he wants to make sure you know that.

-VN

[Thanks to whoever sent this in - I forget, sorry.]