THE ALBUM OF THE DAY IS…
DREAM THEATER, METROPOLIS PART 2: SCENES FROM A MEMORY
By the late ’90s metal with any level of above average musicianship prog-metal had fallen extremely out of fashion, as bands like Limp Suckit stormed the airwaves. Dream Theater released the very so-so Falling Into Infinity in 1997 in an effort to maintain some sort of commercial viability, but that was it for the Long Island quintet. Starting with 1999’s amazing Scenes From a Memory, Dream Theater got back to what brought them legions of loyal fans in the first place, and they never turned back. Scenes From a Memory isn’t Dream Theater’s heaviest album, it’s not their poppiest, it’s not their proggiest; but it’s absolutely their best.
Scenes from a Memory is an unabashed concept album, a prog rock masterpiece about the 1928 murder of a young woman and how a modern man is haunted by the crime. Every single track is full of prog metal awesomeness, John Petrucci shreddery, Jordan Rudess keyboard shreddery, and sometimes Petrucci/Rudess dual shreddery! Drummer Mike Portnoy really came into his own on this album with his best drum performance to date, and though the piccolo snare and razor thin bass drum sound dated in 2007, the production is good enough that it still completely holds up. “Home” is the standout track, a prog metal masterpiece that is really a Part II of “Metropolis” from 1992’s Images and Words, and of course there is the infamous ballad “The Spirit Carries On” with its soaring melodies, David Gilmour-esque guitar solo, and 50 piece gospel choir; but really every song is so good that I feel terrible talking about favorite tracks as I would favorite children… if I had children. This was also the first album that Dream Theater produced themselves, and the first time they wrote entirely in the studio, which is remarkable given the complexity of the songs. Scenes From a Memory is the quintessential Dream Theater album. You need to own it.
-VN
Buy Metropolis Part 2: Scenes from a Memory
