Black Clouds & Silver Linings (3CD Limited Edition)

Dream Theaters tenth studio album, 'Black Clouds and Silver Linings' heavily follows in the footsteps of DT's last studio release, Systematic Chaos.
With 4 of the 6 tracks on the album weighing in at over 10 minutes, this album is heavily 'epic' oriented. The other two tracks thus qualify as the 'singles', of which 'A Rite Of Passage' is already released, and I'm sure 'Wither' (The shortest track of the album, at 5:25) will shortly follow. Both songs do as singles should - they both contain powerful, memorable choruses.

It digs deeper into metal territory than Systematic Chaos dared go (lots of heavy riffage, and even a blast beat in 'A Nightmare To Remember'), but still somehow retaining the DT progressive edge, which shines out in the instrumental sections of some of the songs.
'Wither', a ballad, and 'The Best Of Times' provide a slight reprise to all of this.

The album deals with a couple of sentimental issues, especially 'The Best Of Times', which is an ode… more »

Dream Theaters tenth studio album, 'Black Clouds and Silver Linings' heavily follows in the footsteps of DT's last studio release, Systematic Chaos.
With 4 of the 6 tracks on the album weighing in at over 10 minutes, this album is heavily 'epic' oriented. The other two tracks thus qualify as the 'singles', of which 'A Rite Of Passage' is already released, and I'm sure 'Wither' (The shortest track of the album, at 5:25) will shortly follow. Both songs do as singles should - they both contain powerful, memorable choruses.

It digs deeper into metal territory than Systematic Chaos dared go (lots of heavy riffage, and even a blast beat in 'A Nightmare To Remember'), but still somehow retaining the DT progressive edge, which shines out in the instrumental sections of some of the songs.
'Wither', a ballad, and 'The Best Of Times' provide a slight reprise to all of this.

The album deals with a couple of sentimental issues, especially 'The Best Of Times', which is an ode to the life of Portnoy and his father, who recently passed away (RIP). 'A Nightmare To Remember' is about a car crash that Petrucci was in when he was younger, and it is presented to us almost like a horror story. 'The Count Of Tuscany' is also another Petrucci experience, this time about a count that frightened him, and again, we are presented with an almost horror movie style description.

LaBrie's voice is somewhat rested on this album - the vocal lines are lower than other albums, the highest note i think is a strained C4 in 'The Shattered Fortress'. He instead focuses on the lower part of his range to emphasise the deep metal choruses and riffs, which suits the songs fine, but I just feel there's something lacking, the high notes just made the songs that more special. :)

It's another step out for DT (then again, what's progressive without progress?) and this album is certainly up there as one of my favourites (accompanying 'Images and Words', 'Six Degrees...' and 'Octavarium'). Fans of 'Systematic Chaos' and 'Train of Thought' should feel right at home, whereas hardcore 'Images and Words' fans may not take to it as much.

All in all, I really like this album, I found it a really enjoyable listen.

Aside from the main disc, there are 2 other discs with the special edition -

The second disc contains 6 recorded cover songs, an interesting variety of artists covered (from Iron Maiden to Queen to The Dixie Dregs) and for someone as young as myself, a welcome look at what the DT guys were influenced by. A great listen that I think justifies the extra couple of quid you pay for the 3CD edition.

The 3rd disc contains what essentially are backing tracks of the 1st disc. I think this is quite a strange offering, although it gives the chance for hardcore musicians to play the albums many solos without accompaniment, or even to write their own solos to fit the accompaniment. It also gives you a chance to sing along to some of the songs if you're in that kind of mood . :)

I apologise for the lengthy review, but I hope I've managed to give you a good insight into this new album.