Dream Theater - Images And Words
I've wanted to review this album ever since I started 'Mood Swings'. I've deliberately put off doing it, until now. The problem is that I find it difficult to be objective about this album. The reason is that this is probably my No. 1 album of all time. Other prime candidates for the title are Harem Scarem - Mood Swings (what a surprise !) and Giant - Last Of The Runaways.
Dream Theater's music is usually described as progressive metal, but I think the album gels together influences such as progressive rock, heavy metal, speed/thrash metal, techno metal and AOR.
I grew up listening to traditional heavy metal. Now I would now describe myself as an AOR/Melodic Rock fan. Whilst I like the idea of longer songs and musical pieces, I generally find my attention wandering during traditional progressive rock epics. Of the whole thrash/speed metal scene only Metallica hold any appeal and I find their negative lyrics a turn-off. Techo metal, such as Queensryche, I find cold and dispassionate. Dream Theater are therefore a dream, if you'll excuse the pun, come true. They combine the best elements from a number of musical genres. If you like comparisons then think of a melting pot consisting of Rush, Metallica and Marillion.
I'll spare you a track by track description. The music on offers includes riff driven rockers (Pull Me Under & Take The Time), AOR (Surrounded), ballads (Wait For Sleep) and tempo changing epics (Learning To Live). At almost a hour long with only 8 songs, you can guess that we aren't talking about 3 min pop songs.
The lyrics are thought provoking and intelligent. Some of songs have almost a spiritual quality about them.
This isn't the sort of album to give up all it's secrets on the first listen. You can go back to it time and time again. If the album does have one fault, it's that on some listens it can sound cold and calculated.
I reckon this is about as close to the perfect album that it's possible to achieve. This album therefore scores a perfect 10 in my rating system and is a reference against which to measure the quality of other albums.
Rating : 10
