Now, no one can accuse Mike Portnoy of being lazy. Since his departure from Dream Theater in 2010, he has been involved in 706 different projects and none of them sound like Dream Theater…until this one. Personally, I’m surprised its taken 7 years for him to make an album like this. I’m aware that he did the 12 steps suite with Haken and Eric Gillette as his backing band. He always wanted to do them as a whole with Dream Theater, and for obvious reasons that never happened. So if you’re going to do a Prog metal record to rival what you have done before, then you’re going to need some kick ass musicians right?
Bumblefoot is on guitar, and what a great and innovative player he is. Billy Sheehan on bass is a monster player in his own right. Portnoy’s old DT band mate, Derek Sherinian, is on keys. He was my favourite DT keyboard player as he brought the rock big time – I was sad to see him leave. On vocals, Jeff Scott Soto, who has been around the block a few times, and to me, is the best possible vocalist for this band. He has great tone and range to his vocals. I’ll get this out of the way here: I was a huge DT fan and have seen them 36 times, but over the last couple of albums they have been coasting and all of the creativity and challenging music seems to have gone. So, this album is a shot in the arm for me. To see Portnoy still wishing to push himself and create challenging music is a joy.
Gods Of The Son is a monster opening tune, and whether MP admits it or not, it’s a big F-U to his former band. This has everything and will blow you away. Coming Home keeps the quality very high, and has the bonus of a killer chorus and vocal from Jeff. The opening riff and groove to Signs Of The Time is just epic, and you can see that the main difference between SOP and DT is the melodies as well as Jeff’s vocal tone. Of course, the music is top notch and all of them are out doing each other. Parts of this song remind me of the fusion bands of the seventies. I’m drooling…and that was just Side 1!!!
I’m going to skip to the final track – Opus Maximus, but take it from me, every song on this record is just amazing. The opening instrumental section is eerie and doom inducing before exploding into instrumental heaven. There are a thousand different riffs and grooves to keep the fidgety amongst us happy. One hell of album! My only gripe about this record is that Side 4 is one of those pointless etched sides. Yeah it looks pretty, but when I’m paying $50 for a record I’d like music all the way please.
9.5/10 from The Grooveman.
