Super17
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Total Posts
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158
- Joined: 1/26/2007
- Location: Bergan County, New Jersey
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RE: Systematic Chaos - CD and DVD release info!
Saturday, April 14, 2007 9:06 PM
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Sorry, folks. I've been out of it a while. Where are there a breakdown of lyrics or song subject explanations?
Thanks. Cheers
Heres all the info you might not know...
Which brings us back to Systematic Chaos, in its own way as unrelenting as Metallica’s 1986 breakthrough. “If there’s anything we did on this record on purpose,” confirms Petrucci, “it was that we left out more sensitive, softer material.” Although the music therein is written jointly by all members, the lyrics to each song were written completely by either Petrucci, Portnoy or LaBrie. Petrucci, who penned the lyrics to “In the Presence of Enemies,” “The Ministry of Lost Souls,” “Forsaken” and “The Dark Eternal Night”, describes his lyrics as “total fantasy, about alternate worlds, vampires, dark lords, the internal battle between good and evil.” Two songs on the album, though, take on issues with very real consequences. LaBrie’s “Prophets of War” is a searing indictment of the war in Iraq, and Portnoy’s brooding “Repentance” is part of what will eventually be a musical exploration of Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 Step program. “I’ve been writing about 12 steps for four albums in a row, and “Repentance” represents the eighth and ninth steps,” Portnoy explains. “It’s been incredibly therapeutic to write about the steps, because every time I write one of these chapters, I’m doing the steps in my life, and writing about it cements it into my being. Once the saga concludes with the final three steps on the next album, it will make for a 60 minute epic that’s a healing piece of music.” In its 22nd year, Dream Theater finds itself on a new label, Roadrunner Records and with a new album, but it’s still enhanced by the same grit, single-minded determination and independence that has set the band apart from the pack. “You can’t compromise with the type of music that we play and the relationship we have with the fans,” says Petrucci. “The integrity factor always has to be there, otherwise people see right through it.” That said, Portnoy stresses “with all of our achievements, I feel that the best chapter of Dream Theater has yet to be written.”
* The opener "In the Presence of Enemies Pt. 1" begins like an instrumental number of the "Scenes from a Memory" era: a lot of 70s synthies, a warm, Rush-like guitar sound, a good balance between shredding and breaks. A great tension / arc lasting until the vocals come in late, changing the nine-minute track into a midtempo epic.
* The short, calm rocker "Forsaken" will most likely be the first single. Jordan's keys are atmospheric, however the refrain seems a little flat.
* Like "Forsaken", there will be a video shot for "Constant Motion", however the song sounds significantly heavier. Driven by a monstrous legato guitar riff, JLB shouts like [James] Hetfield during the "Black Album" days, which works surprisingly well and makes the modern-arranged, original cyberspace-hit the first big moment of the CD.
* The nine-minute "The Dark Eternal Night" is imilarly intriguing, innovative and Dark-Fiction-heavy, an in parts extremely heavy and fast Metal-thunderstorm where distorted vocals and great clean choruses are balanced and framed by fantastic solos and Western-Piano-parts.
* ("Der Höhenflug geht weiter." Bah. Sind wir hier in einer sportreportage?) For eleven minutes, in "Repentance" DT are flying through the Psychedelic-Rock universe. The mainly balladesc, never cheesy dream travel is a bit reminiscent of Tool and Psychotic Waltz and there are also several Pink-Floyd reminding parts.
* "Prophets of War" - apart from massive shouting passages and James's clean vocal melodies - seems almost like a Muse copy that despite all musical class seems to be missing a red thread a bit.
* The fifteen-minute "Ministry of Lost Souls" begins as a bombastic ballad with orchestral keyboards, then climbs through SFAM-like instrumental passages to a heavy middle part before the epic elements take over again.
* In closing the listener gets the full Prog-Metal smash with the 17-minute second part of "ITPOE": spacy Pink Floyd sounds, emotional vocals, long arcs (tension arcs? you don't say that in english, do you?), hyperbombast, aggressive thrash like early Metallica, breathtaking solos and a dramatic finale - a fitting last chapter of a first-class CD that has less filler tracks than the precedessor 8V and though all its modern elements never seems forced in that direction.
"The CD contains all elements we're known for", MP praises the album produced by him and JP. "The focus is on scull-crashing riffs, big progressive epics and heartwrenching melodies - the album sounds very dramatic and aggressive. I'm sure our fanbase will be happy with the new material."
The New York-based quintet’s new, ninth album, Systematic Chaos, is comprised of the kind of punishingly complex, technically accomplished, and simply sprawling —which is to say, uncompromising— progressive rock that has endeared them to fans all over the world for over 20 years. “How uncompromising?” you may ask. How about the fact that the shortest song, “Forsaken” runs just over five and a half minutes, and the longest, “In the Presence of Enemies” a two part epic that opens and closes the album, spans over twenty-five minutes? How about the fact that each track features the kind of demanding musicianship that has landed each instrumentalist in the band the long-term respect of peers and aspiring virtuosos? In total, Systematic Chaos demonstrates the cold, hard fact that Dream Theater is the most prominent progressive metal band on Earth. The band has not only paved the way for similarly inclined artists like Spock’s Beard, Porcupine Tree and a host of others, but has gone some distance in rehabilitating the much-maligned prog-rock genre. “As a metal band,” explains guitarist John Petrucci, “we’ve taken elements of music that aren’t deemed cool by younger people into a more modern light.” According to Portnoy, the record’s title “describes the sound of our music, which is methodical and meticulous on one hand, but on the other is acrobatic and abstract.” Systematic Chaos takes rock and metal to epic extremes: The Pantera-esque “The Dark Eternal Night” portrays the battle between a heroic protagonist and a demonic antagonist, while the “The Ministry of Lost Souls” and “In the Presence of Enemies” are reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and Rush’s “La Villa Strangiato,” respectively. The band—Portnoy, Petrucci, bassist John Myung, vocalist James LaBrie and keyboardist Jordan Rudess— recorded Systematic Chaos in New York City’s Avatar Studios with engineer Paul Northfield (Rush, Queensryche) in the fall of last year. Portnoy and Petrucci co-produced, as they have done on every album since 1999
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