Very cool to see Mike Portnoy returning to Dream Theater after recently seeing him playing on a Hello Kitty drumset or playing along to a Nickelback track over at Drumeo. I hadn’t heard a Dream Theater on release for a long time, which isn’t so much a comment on their quality but rather an indictment of my listening habits. And after a few listens, I’m coming around on this one.
The first listen was on the home system, where I thought it came across as trying a little too hard to be Rush, and kinda tuned it out after placing it in that box. But after giving it the authentic Rust Bucket Listen, placing it in the stock CD player of my grungy second-hand car, it sounds much better, and my rating of it has improved.
The track that did it for me was track 5, “Midnight Messiah”, which is probably odd for an album of this length (where the standout comes halfway through). But I like the groove and the riffs, and found it approachable enough that it gave me an “in” to check out the music. I like the instrumental opener “In the Arms of Morpheus”, as well as “Bend the Clock”, and “A Broken Man” isn’t too bad either. The 19 minute final track “The Shadow Man Incident” is still a challenge, but as a whole, the album sits much better as some ambient music in the background at the house than others in my collection.
Which is a reminder that location matters, even for music, and that sometimes a context shift is necessary. 8/10