Dream Theater

‘Awake’ (EastWest advance tape)

Rating: 3 out of 5 – Kompetent

A skillful typist is not the same thing as a great writer. Similarly, Dream Theater are astonishingly dexterous musicians, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that they make great music.

This time out, the band have at least tried to meet the rest of us halfway by penning a handful of bona fide songs that make sense and that have skeletons strong enough to carry the weight of the over-stuffed musical ostentation that Dream Theater cannot resist piling on. Of course, we aren’t talking about infectious toe-tappers that will have you annoying the neighbours come bath-time here; but ‘6:00’ and ‘Caught In A Web’ are robust enough to ensure that ‘Awake’ is by far their strongest record to date.

As for much of the rest of the album, it’s business as usual: lengthy symphonic opuses of the kind that Rush and It Bites made acceptable by never straying too far from the themes of the song, and never letting unfettered virtuosity tower above everything else. Alternatively, Dream Theater seem to be driven by a desire never to hold down a riff for more than a couple of bars (‘Lies’ being the exception that proves the rule on ‘Awake’) and never to say with one phrase what can be said with a thousand. The result is too often a soulless wall of noise.

Tool prove that it is possible to create music that is both convoluted and emotionally hard-hitting. Dream Theater need to apply their talents with more modesty to achieve the same. Sometimes, less really is more.

—Liam Sheils