Hey all,
I’ve heard a little of this band, and they sound like a band I’d like to get into (I’m a big 70’s prog rock fan, and I hear these guys are the prog rockers of the 90’s.)
Can anybody give me an idea of the “must-have” albums from these guys?
The two albums of theirs that I like the most are Awake and Images and Words. I’m not as fond of their later albums, but they’re still pretty good.
I think Scenes from a Memory is also quite good, but the two Teine mentioned are essential.
On one of their albums they have a photo of the studio they recorded it in. As an poor audio engineer, let me say…
Hubba hubba
I’d also like to suggest A Change of Seasons.
You picked a great band to get into, as they’ve already got like 12 albums out.
I third the recommendation for Images and Words. I’ve heard a couple of their other ones and wasn’t that impressed, but I’ve been listening to I & W pretty regularly since it came out in the early 90s.
Good sugestions. You’ll like A Change of Seasons if you’re into 70s and prog rock, as they do a bunch of covers (live) on that album. In fact, their rendition of Elton John’s Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding is what got me into them in the first place.
Images and Words is a definite “must-have”. Opinions range on the other albums. ACoS is pretty good but is half covers; Awake is close to IAW but a little darker, more hard-rock-ish. Falling Into Infinity has some good songs but is a pretty radical departure from the older material. SFaM is a bit of a “return to the roots” album and has many references to one of the IAW songs.
If you can find it, When Dream and Day Unite (their first album, with previous lead singer) isn’t half-bad, but can be a little too 80s-synthpop for some people. There are bootleg/fan club CDs floating around that have all the tracks from that album, except with James LaBrie performing live, but it’s pretty rare.
Falling Into Infinity is my favorite, but it’s a little heavier than their other stuff (not too much, though). The latest one, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, is also really good.
Pretty much what everyone said.
DT is also one HELL of a live band. They never play the same setlist twice, which is why their bootlegs are so popular – you need 5 or 6 shows from each tour, just to get every song they played!!! They also have an increasing penchant for cover songs. At a few shows last year, they performed Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” and Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast” albums in their entirety.
Definitely Images and Words… Awake is, IMHO, severely underrated. Falling Into Infinity is a good prog album, but not a good Dream Theater album. Scenes From a Memory is pretty much in the vein of the first two I mentioned. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence is a double length studio album: five songs on disc 1, one 42 minute compostion on disc 2, it’s kinda involved. Their first album When Dream and Day Unite is probably just for diehards like me.
I’ll second the comment about their live show… Gotta be the tightest band I’ve ever seen.
You like new prog? check out Spock’s Beard, Porcupine Tree, Flower Kings, Pain of Salvation… there’s a lot out right now. It’s a great time to be a prog fan
Oh yeah, and here’s a couple of really cool labels…enjoy
http://www.magnacarta.net/07.html
http://www.insideoutmusic.com/
I came upon some songs of theirs unsappunatim when I was looking for songs from the movie Metropolis (the original, with the robots). I’d give them a good rating.