I have a little secret to let you in on. Somewhere, in the deep recesses of my soul, there’s a prog rocker just dying to be let loose. You know, the kind of music fanatic who drools over long songs with complex structures and self-congratulatory solos of all kinds, gleefully rejoicing over the notion of a “concept album” in which most of the tunes are far too entrenched in the overall story to ever be singled out for radio play. That part of me wonders if I was born too late. I missed the prog-rock excesses of the 70’s, and while I was alive during the hair metal heyday of the 80’s, I innocently assumed it was all evil at the time. Thankfully, a band called Dream Theater has popped up on my radar, forcing me to face the questions of what exactly I had been missing.
Don’t let me confuse you - Dream Theater isn’t some 70’s or 80’s band. I guess they’ve been around since the 80’s, but my first taste of their music comes from the very recent year 2002. Not that you would be immediately able to tell if you didn’t any better - their two-disc album Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence is one of those creations that you can pop into your CD player and pretend it’s a different era all over again throughout most of it. And yet there are hints of the future amidst all of the prog-metal glory - a little record scratching here, a homage to a turn-of-the century hard rock band there - it’s one heck of a montage. But then you’ve got your keyboard solos, your difficult time signatures, and your operatic vocals that no nu-metal or punk band would be caught dead with. It’s gonna be a tough mix for a lot of modern music fans to take it seriously. But there’s something about the excess and experimentation that just sends shivers down my spine.
As I alluded to earlier, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence follows in the grand progressive tradition known as the “concept album”. The album consists of a scant six songs spread over two discs, all of which are meant to connect to one another loosely tell a story. I know, six songs doesn’t sound like a lot, but three of the five songs on the first disc run over ten minutes, with the shortest being over six, and the sixth and final song takes up the final disc, broken into eight tracks for slightly easier digestion, with a total running time of about forty-five minutes. It’s a behemoth. It’s probably about two breaths away from being classifiable as a “rock opera”. But then what do I know, I wasn’t around when these things were invented. All I can tell you is that it’s a heck of an intriguing listen if you’re even remotely interested in, or amused by, this sort of thing.
Remember the days when rock bands were centered around their guitar heroes more so than the lead singers? Dream Theater is one of those bands. Which is not to say that vocalist James LaBrie is merely a mouthpiece with no creative input - he writes the occasional lyric for the band - but it’s ax-wielder John Petrucci who gets most of the air time here. He and his college buddies, bass player John Myung and drummer Mike Portnoy, are the core members of the band who have seen it through a few personnel changes in the vocal and keyboard departments. The band is rounded out by their current keyboardist, Jordan Rudess. While vocals are definitely an essential ingredient - without them it’s tough to tell a coherent story - they are often used to introduce and conclude Dream Theater’s songs, setting the scene and giving the listener something to think about before dazzling them with instrumental wizardry.
This approach probably isn’t going to work for less patient listeners, especially in a day and age where the guitar solo is threatening to go the way of the dinosaur, and I’ll admit that constructing songs around solo performances can get a bit old from time to time. However, the beauty of Dream Theater’s music, at least on this album, is that they function tightly as a unit, instead of just being a jam band whose players all have different ideas. They trade off well with each other in a variety of musical climates, and like a sonic Voltron (there’s another 80’s reference for ya!), they pack a serious wallop when they come back together to finish off a song. With each member contributing to the composition, this makes the possibilities seem limitless. And that’ll always hook me on a band - I like being transported off into fantasy worlds that seem to know no bounds.
I suppose I shouldn’t give you the false impression that Dream Theater has no weaknesses, though. Constant criticisms are leveled against bands of this nature, the most frequent remark being that they are “pretentious”. And there are times when the lyrics seem to be trying to hard to get a point of view across, or when the music seems to be drifting off aimlessly, making you wonder if the song is supposed to have a point in the first place. Those two things can work against each other at times - mostly when Dream Theater tries to assign a clear moral to their stories. Part of me would rather just be dropped off in the mentally deranged world described my many of these songs, get to know the characters a little bit, and draw my own conclusions as to what it all means. It’s that whole “show, but not tell” thing. Still, the occasional urge to check my watch or wince at a lyric doesn’t keep Six Degrees from being a fascinating listen.
DISC ONE
The Glass Prison
Cry, desperate, crawling on my knees
Begging God to please stop the insanity
Help me, I'm trying to believe
Stop wallowing in my own self pity…
A drawn-out, static-drenched intro and the sound of a lone bell were my introduction to Dream Theater’s world. Standing at nearly fourteen minutes, a track like this is certainly an intimidating way to get to know a band, but once the death march-like guitar intro gave way to a pummeling section of squealing riffs and pounding drums, I knew I was in for an entertaining ride. Essentially an amalgamation of three songs rolled into one, this track tells the story of a recovering alcoholic who has to take that first step of breaking down and admitting he can’t overcome the addiction on his own. James LaBrie’s vocals are menacing at first as he describes the personal hell this character is trapped in, and he gets to show off his higher range when the character pleads for help. Mike Portnoy wrote this song, and it’s easy to tell from the uncountable number of time signature changes that he wanted to give himself something intricate to bang on. He and John Petrucci pull this thing off with flying colors, while Jordan Rudess adds a little bit of color with his keyboards, which do sound a bit dated, but that’s not a big deal once you grow accustomed to it. While the song has its awkward moments, such as some odd record scratching and police sirens showing up during its second movement, and lyrics that refer a little too obviously to the 12-step programs that recovering alcoholics often participate in, it definitely gets the album off to a stellar start with plenty of guitar heroics, and as it comes crashing to a close, the addict finally seems to find his way out of the maze. But the song is left unresolved, as if to leave the listener with doubt over whether this character is ready to leave his comfort zone.
Blind Faith
I've painted my own Mona Lisa
She's fixed everything
Now I'm spoiled beyond my wildest dreams…
The second song bleeds in slowly, allowing the listener to catch their breath as John Myung lays down a calm bass groove. The song doesn’t take too long to delve back into guitar pyrotechnics, but overall it’s a bit more evenly paced than “The Glass Prison”, taking on more of a grandiose, arena rock approach. LaBrie wrote the lyrics, and they appear to be dealing with religious zealots, people who are trying to convert others to their way of thinking without really understanding why they themselves believe it. I’m not sure of the band’s religious bent, but they sure leave a lot of spiritual “clues” in their lyrics, including the mention of a “Messiah” in the song’s final chorus. Of course, such things are to be expected from band’s that take on such grandiose compositional challenges - I guess it seems like a waste to make the music feel supernatural and leave the lyrics behind in the everyday world. Anyway, while the song has a slightly awkward chorus (the echoed vocal lines are hard to make out, which dampens the main thrust of the song quite a bit), the song still redeems itself with an amazing instrumental mid-section based on a repeating guitar line that the rest of the band toys around with rhythmically, even dropping out and letting Jordan’s piano take over at one point. This exchange goes on for quite some time, and it’s almost like having a fancy dinner party where the table’s centerpiece doesn’t leave much room for the actual food, but it sure is a lovely centerpiece! Finally, somewhere past the ten minute mark, the song hangs on its final note, as if teetering on a cliff, and then it falls off into oblivion.
Misunderstood
It challenges the essence of my soul
And leaves me in a state of disconnection
As I navigate the maze of self control…
The album descends into a very quiet mood at the beginning of this track, which for all intents and purposes, can be considered Dream Theater’s version of a “power ballad”. Most of the first verse and chorus are led by gentle guitar strokes from Petrucci, plus a touch of volin, but as the tension builds, you can hear Myung’s bass and Portnoy’s drums slithering about in the background. Finally, James breaks out of his solitude as the second chorus comes slamming in with a desperate crash of guitar and drums - a head banging moment if I ever heard one! This seems to be one of those “tortured celebrity” songs, in which the main character is lamenting being loved by everybody but not really being seen for who he is. Perhaps it’s his own fault; perhaps he’s played up his celebrity to the point where people are expecting too much of him - all he knows is that he’s lonely and desperate to connect with someone. “If I seem superhuman, I have been misunderstood”, he explains, and in the buildup to this song’s fantastic chorus, he resolves to be transformed, “I turn from a thief to a beggar, from a god to God, save me.” After the second chorus, the song gives way to an utterly unsettling guitar solo, under girded by a repeating fuzzy bass line. This section is repeated after the final chorus, with the guitar going absolutely bonkers, to the point of atonality - it’s a dizzying sonic experience rivaling Radiohead‘s “The National Anthem” (and Radiohead was probably one of the modern influences the band intentionally drew from on this one). That ending part might get a little excessive as the creepy keyboards writhe underneath the bass and guitars like rabid snakes and the noise takes over two minutes to finally dissipate, but that doesn’t keep “Misunderstood” from being the definite standout track of the album.
The Great Debate
Ethic inquisitions breed antagonistic views
Right wing sound bite premonitions in a labyrinth of rules…
This would probably be the point where Dream Theater’s modern influences are the most obvious (not that their classic influences aren’t obvious, but bands don’t generally get reamed as much for borrowing musical ideas from older bands as they do for borrowing from current bands, you know?) The tribal drums, the sinister vocals, and the dark bass lines that anchor the song are a definite homage to Tool‘s more recent work, specifically the song “Lateralus” and the instrumental “Triad”. I do see this as an homage and not a complete rip-off, but I will admit it’s a bit close for comfort. LaBrie goes into his higher register later, and it’s actually impressive that he can sound so much like Maynard James Keenan and then go back to being a heavy metal wailer with such ease. The song makes mo mystery of its subject matter this time, using an array of sound clips to place the listener in the middle of a fierce controversy - stem cell research. I actually wish they hadn‘t made it so obvious - the song would have had a much more creepy effect if they had left us to wonder what the heck they were talking about when James snarls, “Are you justified in taking LIFE TO SAVE LIFE?” The song hit’s a few lyrical snags when it throws out platitudes such as “Humankind has reached a turning point”, but ultimately it does a great job of creating a dark and creepy mood - that chorus is absolutely chilling. At times I have to wonder if the band’s trying to push a specific side of the debate on to their listeners - that would probably lower my opinion of it a notch, because the title seems to suggest that it is a difficult debate and there are no easy answers. This one runs to almost fourteen minutes, being barely outdone by “The Glass Prison” in the contest to be the longest track on the album.
Disappear
Turn, I'll turn this slowly round
Burn, burn to feel alive again
She, she'd want me to move on…
The first disc’s final track is a horse of a different color - it’s a ballad that starts off with a spacey, keyboard driven intro in 10/8 time, later settling into a comfortable but moody chorus in 3/4, mostly foregoing the heavy electric guitars for a simpler acoustic strum, gentle piano accompaniment, and weird keyboard noise that gives the song a detached, disoriented feel. It’s also the shortest track on the first disc, at about six and a half minutes. (Yeah, that’s considered a short song for these guys!) LaBrie is at the helm lyrically once again, and he appears to be mourning a lost love, perhaps someone who passed away and left him to cope with the mess she left behind. He seems resolute that “She’d want me to move on”, but his mood seems to change back and forth regarding whether he can make it through without her, which I guess helps to explain the alternately relaxed and confused musical moods. I get the feeling that this is a different track than the band’s usual work, but I think the attempt at a softer song was successful, because it’s definitely not a clich� ballad. James’ vocals are more reserved here and he doesn’t go into his higher pitch, so you can almost forget for a few minutes that Dream Theater is a prog-metal band at its core. Once again, a vaguely spiritual theme comes into play when he tells her at the end of the song, “Let him come take you home”. And then, after repeating the odd intro, the first disc comes to a close.
DISC TWO
i. Overture
Well, if you thought the first disc was an exercise in theatrical metal excess, wait ‘til you get a load of disc two. It might just be one of the best examples of extreme over-the-top-ness since Extreme. The disc contains the title song, “Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence”, which is divided into eight parts for your convenience/further bafflement. The suite opens with this “Overture”, which is a fairly textbook (for these types of bands, anyway) exercise in fusing classical composition with heavy metal guitar. In doing so, the group manages to weave in melody lines from the “songs” that are to follow. It may sound a bit geeky at times (there are passages here that I would swear I’ve heard while waiting in line for Disneyland rides), but it almost triumphs in its self-indulgence. In that sense, it’s a good microcosm of the suite that follows it.
ii. About to Crash
And she tried everyday with endless drive to make the grade
Then one day, she woke up to find
The perfect girl had lost her mind…
The first actual song of the suite starts out with a lovely, upbeat piano melody in an unorthodox time signature (there are so many in this second half that I’ve decided not to bore you with all of the details). The song describes the first of a few different characters who are mentally deranged in their own way, this one being a “normal” Midwestern girl who simply has too many expectations to live up to, and so she’s taken on way too many responsibilities and lost her joy and innocence as a result. The music seems to mirror this by speeding up bit by bit as the time signatures change, getting more frantic and less “happy” as it goes. It finally arrives at a slower, more soaring guitar instrumental before segueing into the next track.
iii. War Inside My Head
A free vacation of palm trees and shrapnel
Trading innocence for permanent psychotic hell…
The second character introduced gets a brief and frantic vignette - he’s a war hero haunted by memories of explosions and carnage on the battlefield. The drums, guitars and even keyboards pummel the listener as LaBrie takes on the more menacing growl of some of his heavy metal forefathers. It’s a good rocking number, but it ends a bit abruptly as the guitars come careening down into the next piece.
iv. The Test that Stumped Them All
He lives in a world of fiction
And really could use some help
We have just the place to fix him
To save him from himself..
This track is positively vicious. Portnoy has once again given himself something fun to bang on, sticking to a furiously odd rhythm of 7 for most of the song, and inserting several manic drum fills wherever he has space to do so. Other listeners have compared this track to Pantera, and well, I’ll just have to leave that to more astute metalheads, having never heard Pantera myself. It’s very fierce and very dark, and yet the keyboards still zip about, and the vocals take a very theatrical turn at some point a la Queen, just to add to the insanity. It’s definitely the most impressive track on the second disc, describing a patient in a psychiatric ward whose ailment can’t be determined by the doctors who constantly administer drugs and prod him with various tests, possibly driving him more insane in the process. For those who are bothered by this sort of thing (I used to be, but I can live with it in small doses), this song contains the only swear word on the album when LaBrie describes “The smell of stale sweat and sh*t steaming through the night.” Which is not something I’d normally want to hear on an album, but it’s probably an apt description of the clinical hell that this person lives in.
v. Goodnight Kiss
It's been 5 years to the day and
And my tainted blood's still the same
I can't help acting this way
And those b*st*rd doctors are gonna pay…
After the previous track suddenly crescendoes in a flurry of squealing guitar and cymbals, everything fades away, leaving Jordan’s soft keyboards to introduce what sounds on the surface like a sentimental, fluffy ballad. It’s a tear-jerker if I’ve ever heard one, since the main character is a single father trying to comfort his young daughter in the wake of his wife’s passing. The song turns bitter as he looks back on her death, blaming the doctors who could have potentially saved her. Portnoy’s lyrics leave a little bit to be desired here, since he offers up a few cheesy lines such as “Lavender in your bed”, and overall I’d like to spend a bit more time with this character. Instead the song speeds up into another instrumental section, and underneath it you can hear the unsettling hustle and bustle of a hospital, a young girl screaming, and a man sobbing. It may be heavy-handed, but I won’t deny that it’s effective.
vi. Solitary Shell
As a man he was a danger to himself
Fearful and sad most of the time
He was drifting in and out of sanity
But in every other way he was fine…
Here’s another point where some fans cried “sellout” - the thumping drum intro and shining acoustic guitar are very reminiscent of Peter Gabriel‘s hit “Solsbury Hill”. Looking at the title “Solitary Shell”, I think that might have been intentional - perhaps the Gabriel song is being used as a reference point or even an inside joke? Anyway, this one has a deceptively happy sound due to the synthesized keyboards that float above it. The song describes a young man who actually doesn’t seem to be all that crazy - perhaps he’s an introvert, or maybe if you stretch it, he might be autistic. The problem here is similar to “The Test that Stumped Them All” - people seem to want to fix him even though he’s doing just fine on his own. He probably just isn’t as social as the rest of us. While there are a few harder guitar breaks, this one remains firmly rooted in acoustic pop territory - a refreshing change and probably not an easy element to work into the rest of the suite.
vii. About to Crash (Reprise)
I feel strong, I've got a new sense of elation
Boundless energy, euphoria fixation…
A familiar refrain kicks in confidently in the form of a triumphant, distorted guitar intro - listen closely and you’ll realize it’s an extension of an earlier song. The band plays with the rhythm of that refrain here and there, and this track abounds with keyboard soloing that reminds me of a lot of electronic music from the 80’s. Very eclectic. The song may or may not be revisiting the story of the girl described in the original “About to Crash” - it just seems to be asking the general question of whether someone will be there to comfort us when we feel like we’re going insane. The song is defiant and resolute at first, but then it backs off, as if unsure about whether the euphoria will last. Maybe the character is just hiding behind it. Portnoy and Rudess own this song with their respective drum fills and keyboard flourishes. The only weakness here is that the rhymes are a bit tired - “high, fly, sky, by”.
viii. Losing Time/Grand Finale
She doesn't recall yesterday
Faces seem twisted and strange
But she always wakes up
Only to find she'd been miles away…
At long last, the band shifts into a slow anthem in 3/4 time, and you can tell they’re building up for a big finish. Perhaps they tried to accomplish a bit too much here, because the last track serves the dual purpose of telling one more story and summing up the album as a whole. I feel like we barely get to know the young woman dressed in black, who seems to live a vagrant lifestyle, before the band gets down to the business of communicating the moral of the story. That’s probably the most frustrating thing about this big long suite - forty-plus minutes of exploring these psycho characters, and then a brief bit about “A journey to find the answers inside”, and then a big crash and it’s over, with the last minute of the album being nothing but the echo of a gong fading out. It was a fun exercise, and I’ll admit I don’t know what a better way to end it would have been… but dang. Talk about painting yourself into a corner and then not knowing how to get out of it!
It’s funny - Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, when taken as a whole, is a pretty awesome album, and yet when you examine a lot of its finer points, it reveals itself to be somewhat awkward and unsure. Perhaps that’s to be expected when a band tries to experiment and imply that everything is supposed to go together thematically. It’s pretty hard to do both at once. Despite all of the awkward or seemingly incomplete moments, though, I’d be hard-pressed to name a single weak track on this album. They all pack quite a punch in their own way, and especially during the suite that fills up the second disc, there’s so much going on that even the seeming missteps are fascinating, because they add to the madness in their own way. Overall, I think the first disc comes out stronger, even if some might view that disc as a collection of very good B-sides that were included so that the band wouldn’t have to put out an album consisting solely of one big long song (which has been done) or just cram one or two of those other songs onto the same disc and call it an album. They made a smart choice to do it as a two-disc set, and there’s a wealth of intriguing material here, so any complaints I have are minor. This one’s getting a 4.5 star rating from me, rounded up to 5 because technically speaking, these guys are ridiculously talented, and they know how to utilize that without making it seem like the whole thing was done solely for the purpose of showing off. It's an album that you just have to hear to believe.
No sooner did I get caught up with this one when I found out that Dream Theater had put a new disc out towards the end of 2003 entitled Train of Thought. Sigh. A reviewer’s work is never done…
ALBUM WORTH:
The Glass Prison $2
Blind Faith $1.50
Misunderstood $2
The Great Debate $1.50
Disappear $1.50
Overture $1
About to Crash $1.50
War Inside My Head $1.50
The Test that Stumped Them All $2
Goodnight Kiss $1.50
Solitary Shell $2
About to Crash (Reprise) $1.50
Losing Time/Grand Finale $1
TOTAL: $20.50
CONCLUSION: Worth it, and then some.
Band Members:
James LaBrie: Lead vocals
John Petrucci: Lead guitar, vocals
Mike Portnoy: Drums, percussion, vocals
John Myung: Bass
Jordan Rudess: Keyboards
Website: http://www.dreamtheater.com
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