ADVANCE REVIEW: Dream Theater, Falling Into Infinity (Elektra)

- Dan Birchall

It's a crazy year in metal. Metallica are accused of selling out - again. Ditto for Queensryche, whose label closed in mid-tour - ouch! Soundgarden called it quits, and Fates Warning thumbed their noses at commercialism, releasing a single 53-minute song. Amid all this, Dream Theater worked on Falling Into Infinity, the first full album after their "A Change of Seasons" EP, which was released only after Internet fans buried the label in e-mail requests. The on-line rumor mills have been running full tilt. How would Kevin Shirley work out as producer? How was keyboardist Derek Sherinian fitting in? Drummer Mike Portnoy's periodic updates on the band's website at http://www.rsabbs.com/dt helped calm the frenzy - a bit.

To get to the bottom of this, I spoke with guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, and Portnoy this August, and gave the CD several listens. Rich harmony, complex rhythms and arrangements, emotional vocals - it's definitely progmetal, and obviously Dream Theater. Myung describes it as 'a classic Dream Theater record.' Portnoy says, "It's the next step for us, but it's a logical step, where it sounds like us," and Petrucci affirms that it's less of a leap than Queensryche and Metallica made.

That's not to say that there haven't been changes. As the band members put it, "A lot of our fans love the Images and Words album, and they love the Awake album, but they have to remember that the music for Images and Words, were written more than ten years ago. We were in our early twenties; it was the late 80's when we wrote that material. People want to hear that stuff again. Will it be like Images and Words? No, because we're ten years older; we're adults now. The music around us is different now, our musical inspirations are different. So it's not going to be anything like either of them. But because we're the same people inside, of course it's going to be us. No matter what we do, it's going to be us. It's just going to be the next step, a further extension. We're the same people, we're the same writers; we have the same interests, but you change, so the music is inevitably going to change as well."

Many small surprises are on this album. The 8-minute lead track "New Millenium" has an eastern, "new-age" feel to it, with some unusual progressions and a keyboard intro a la Alan Parsons. Track two, "You Not Me," circulated throughout the Internet, but band members say that "the album is very diverse. It would be impossible to judge by one song," and they're right - it's not representative. Co-authored by Desmond Child, it's short and accessible, with a simple beat, catchy chorus, and fairly typical pop-metal vocals. Further along, the 12-minute "Lines in the Sand" features soulful backing vocals by Doug Pinnick of King's X. It seems appropriate that the song is full of spiritual imagery.

"Lines in the Sand" is not the only "classic" Dream Theater song here. The disturbing child-abuse tale "Peruvian Skies" shifts from a ballad to metal reminiscent of Mercyful Fate. "Burning My Soul" is an excellent first single, with vocalist James LaBrie spitting out the bitter lyrics. A classic Dream Theater instrumental, "Hell's Kitchen" seems short at just over four minutes - but there are smooth segues at both ends of it! In "Just Let Me Breathe," a hard-rocking free thought treatise, the band vent against the evils of drugs, MTV, record labels, and combinations thereof. They mince no words, stating that "A daily dose of eMpTyV will flush your brain right down the drain." Look for a twisted reference to "Take the Time" in the lyrics of this one as well. And of course, Myung's three-part, 13-minute "Trial of Tears" is an epic - this album's "Metropolis Part I."

The big surprises are the three remaining songs, "Hollow Years," "Take Away My Pain," and "Anna Lee." All three are soft songs, and simpler than the others on the album. More importantly, their lyrics are universal - Dream Theater fans will relate to these songs, but so will anyone else! One expects to see them on rock charts, but with a quick remix, at most, they'd be equally well-suited for almost any genre. It speaks well of the band that they've reached a level of maturity and skill where they can write songs with this kind of universal message, while maintaining their integrity and style.

Dream Theater fans have little to worry about - there are some surprises, but the band remains true to the signature sound of their last few releases. At 78 minutes, the album is so long, and the length of songs so varied, that the order had to be rearranged for the cassette version! The technical mastery fans expect from the band is present in spades, and the results should be appealing. "Burning My Soul" will debut on radio September 15th, so keep your ears - and your mind - open!

What's next for the band? By the time you read this, they may already be in South America, where they expect to play a few shows before the September 23 release. As soon as the album hits stores, they plan to be on the road in the USA. It'll be a different experience, as three members of the band became fathers while working on this album, but they're looking forward to it - and they say the kids might go along in a few years!