Originally published in Democrat and Chronicle · October 1992
Dream Theater
Article1 min read
author unknown
Is there such a thing as heavy metal art? Probably not, four out of five grandparents might say.
Dream Theater, a high-minded Long island band, plays at 3D’s Saturday. That’s a big place whose garage spaces can swallow a timid sound, but Dream theater sounds up to the job.
Their latest album, Images and Words, tells the listener exactly how the band wants to be perceived...as curators of a wide range of rock culture images and words.
There is so much that sounds familiar in this band, but they’re familiar sounds set in unfamiliar landscapes. The band teeters from the brink of Metallica to the high-mindedness of Yes, the raucous call of Rush and the gentle side of King Crimson on the 11-minute, complicated Learning to Live. The Rush-like vocals of Canadian James LaBrie contribute much to this feeling. If there is any one sound that seems to want to emerge here, it is Rush, particularly evident on Images and Words’ opening song, Pull Me Under.
“Progressive metal” is how the band sees all this. And reviews of Dream Theater’s work, mostly positive and sometimes effusive, consistently refer to its musicianship.
The three founders—Mike Portnoy, John Petrucci and John Myung—studied at the Berklee College of Music. And in a genre where mediocrity sells, Dream Theater has assembled a complex sound (the band worked on Images and Words for three years) that works and does not bore, and is devoid of commercial hooks that make so much metal sound groaningly dumb.
But is it pretentious? If they had spelled Theater Theatre, that would be pretentious.