martindavey87 Celebrating 25 years of arguably their best and most important album, as well as THE album that set the blueprint for all of progressive metal to follow, Dream Theater played the entire ‘Images and Words’ album throughout 2017, and as recorded and released here, this was the performance in Japan, a country which has been very kind to the band over their careers.

With that said, I don’t really know what to make of this. ‘Images and Words’ is without doubt, my favourite album of all time. It changed my life when I first stumbled across it back in 2003 at the age of sixteen, and to this day I still consider every track an absolute masterpiece. And yet, this particular release doesn’t really do anything for me.

I mean, there are some obvious detriments, for one thing, James LaBrie absolutely struggles to sing a lot of this now. Age, and a well-documented vocal incident in the 90’s, hasn’t helped. Of course, being a live recording means that the sound isn’t as polished and clear as the studio album either. Then there’s just the general question… why? Why bother releasing this at all?

The answer is simple. Because there are prog nerds such as myself that would snap this up in an instant, if for no other reason than because it’s another Dream Theater CD! But it’s not all bad, for what it’s worth, ‘Images and Words’ IS indeed an absolute classic, and the band have added a few small touches here and there. It makes the album listenable, but only just.

So with that said, buy it, don’t buy it. Whatever. This is one for the die-hard fans. By all means, if you don’t have ‘Images and Words’ then why are you even reading this? Get the bloody thing! It’s only one of the greatest albums ever! But ‘Images and Words – Live in Japan’… it’s basically what it says it is, and not worth owning unless you’re a nerdy collector like me, who must own everything, then proceeds to never listen to it.

Pekka ...or Lost Not Forgotten Archives: Distance Over Time INSTRUMENTAL Demos (2018) as it would be called if InsideOut put just a little more effort into maintaining continuity within the series. At least they finally seem to have settled on parentheses as the manner in which to display the years where each recording originates from after messing with three different styles earlier on in the series. Yes, I'm somewhat pedantic and yes, this has bothered me way more than I wish to admit.

This offering documents the fruits of the early sessions in a highly secret location which later turned out to be Yonderbarn Studios in Monticello, New York. As Train of Thought before, and unlike any other demo issues in the series, this is indeed an entirely instrumental recording since James LaBrie, who resides on the other side of the continent in Canada, was present not in person but via the magic of internet and thus apparently not able or required to lay down any demo takes for his vocals.

Distance Over Time might be my favorite Mangini era DT work and while it's a welcome change of viewpoint to hear the tracks entirely bare of vocals, it's also a bit of a letdown since it would've been interesting to hear a bit more natural voice on these songs instead of the sometimes heavily processed one like on the finished album. On the plus side though, at least my listening habit is often so lead-line focused that I find lots of riffs and layers I've never noticed before while focusing on the vocal lines on top of them.

It's a small thing, but might be my favorite thing on the entire album: Mike Mangini's snare sounds pretty damn good and lively in this unproduced state instead of the very triggered sounding hefty thump that he usually employs - or might just be that instead of triggers his superhuman skill results in each stroke sounding exactly the same when the red light is on for real.

Anyhow, all that this release is in the end is all the same songs pretty much exactly as they would be recorded later on, just in the chronological order as they were written and minus the vocals and the polish of the finished product. The very definition of a "collectors/fans only" release, but as such a very nice one, yet still one that will stay on the shelf for most of the time and deserve just the occasional spin every few years. Or whenever you're in need of some good old DT karaoke.

Pekka The ongoing Lost Not Forgotten Archives series has gotten a good few brand new Mangini era releases in addition to the Official Bootleg reissues, and Live at Madison Square Garden (2010) carries the distinction of being the very first previously unheard Portnoy era recording issued under the new header. This was most likely slated for release around 2010/2011 but scrapped along with the entire project when the drummer split. After the recent mending of fences between all parties it comes as no big surprise, but indeed a very welcome one, that it is dug out from the bin and finally put out.

Recorded during a run supporting Iron Maiden on their Final Frontier tour, the recording finds the band doing a rare short set clocking in at just under 50 minutes with only six songs with no true epics mixed in. Home is the longest track of the bunch at eleven minutes, and the band launches right into the heavier riffs skipping the moody intro of the original recording. The entire set consists of heavier songs from six different albums ranging from the classic Pull Me Under to the then-recent single A Rite of Passage from the at the time latest album Black Clouds and Silver Linings.

After some recent rather well produced entries the MSG show - which carries the credit "produced by John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy for JaM Progductions" further lending credence to the theory that the release was ready to go all those years ago - is a bit more bootleggy affair. The sound is fairly ok in quality, but wildly uneven in volume levels. The vocals are particularly loud and the echo of the arena is gigantic, and amusingly during the Petrucci solo in A Rite of Passage the loudest instrument is the one note backing line of Jordan Rudess' keyboards. Speaking of Rudess, listeners that find his Continuum freakouts offputting should approach with caution, as his solo in the same song is also very very much at the forefront.

Less than slick production aside, the performance is very fine from all members. LaBrie is in good form and, in contrast to the stiffer live habits of the Mangini era, the presence of Portnoy brings some nice looseness in drum arrangements, but also some pretty annoying and pointless mid-song hollers. But it's understandable if he was a bit over-excited as after the set closer he thanks the audience mentioning that the band was formed 25 years ago across the city dreaming of playing this perhaps the most iconic indoor venue in the world.

Live at Madison Square Garden is a very welcome addition to the Dream Theater live canon, and hopefully just the first foray into the Portnoy era recordings that were left in the vaults when the original series went cold.

Pekka As a somewhat serious Dream Theater fan who lacked the funds to buy the original Official Bootlegs back when they came out and subsequently got burned by UNofficial versions multiple times when trying to hunt them down at Discogs.com, I greeted the news of the re-issue program Lost Not Forgotten Archives with glee. In addition to the Portnoy-issued releases the new series was to include brand new recordings from the Mangini era as well.

Recorded during Dream Theater's first visit to the iconic Wacken Open Air festival at the tail end of their 30th Anniversary Tour, the band does a chronological set starting from their first album and ending with the then-last one. As this is indeed a festival show with a shorter time slot than their usual headline events some songs have been dropped from the list, but what is left is a reasonably solid mix ranging from early deep cut Afterlife to some of their most enduring tracks like Metropolis pt. 1 and The Spirit Carries on.

Dream Theater being Dream Theater you know what you're getting from the instrumentalists, and thus any live album lives and dies by James LaBrie's vocal performance. What I really appreciate with these official bootlegs is that while the recent "properly" released Distant Memories live box set was noticeably auto-tuned, this series has always presented an honest picture of what went on any particular night. And in Wacken LaBrie was not having his strongest performance, to put it nicely. As has been the habit for many a show the last decade or so, he does fine when the going is mellow, but when in need of power and range it goes sideways. Bellowing somewhere around the correct notes his pronunciation of the lyrics is often cursory at best.

In addition to the general air of Inside Out half-assing the whole project compared to the lovingly put together originals, there have been a couple of inexplicable decisions made, and on this particular release I can't for the life of me think of a good reason why they left out the final track Behind the Veil. It's not space constraints since it would have fit just fine on any of the formats and it's not a LaBrie issue since there are some way more brutal moments on earlier songs. This would have been the first official live recording of that song, but for some reason they just didn't want to do it.

I'm hoping they have in their vaults a headline show from earlier on the tour with the complete setlist and a less strained vocalist. As it stands Live at Wacken is a nice addition to the series but nothing worth returning to very often.

Warthur The latest Dream Theater album feels a little like business as usual - but unlike their self-titled album, it's a "business as usual" that the band are comfortable with, rather than one they seem tired of. This late in their career, it's perhaps a bit much to expect Dream Theater to reinvent the wheel any time soon; their last attempt to really change their approach was The Astonishing, which can perhaps most charitably be described as well-meaning folly; by comparison, Distance Over Time was a bit of a return of the old Dream Theater, refreshed after that departure.

A View From the Top of the World feels like more of the same, with perhaps more flashes of a sunnier, brighter, optimisitc side of the band's music which has been a feature since at least as far back as Images and Words, but has often flown under the radar (especially when they've been in their darker moods). It's a gradual evolution, not a revolution, but I think it's pretty solid for that.

Warthur This came hot on the heels on the Live At Luna Park live set, which might prompt you to wonder whether Dream Theater were starting to flood the market a little with these epic-length live releases. Ever since Live Scenes From New York ended up as legendary as it was, triple album-length live workouts have been part of Dream Theater's schtick, but I'm unpersuaded.

If you're here for the visuals, then god this is a lot of Dream Theater to sit there and watch for nearly 3 hours; probably too much. This got an audio-only release on CD as well as a DVD release, at least, though the audio does reveal some issues with the mix - LaBrie's vocals are outright murky at some point, and some of the higher cymbal sounds end up coming across weird. The audience are also a little prominent in the mix - some crowd noise is nice on live albums, of course, but here it's a little more intrusive than usual.

Sure, some imperfections come with the territory, that's part of the appeal of live albums usually, but on the technical front past live releases from the band have avoided these issues. It really comes across as something knocked out and released in a hurry - particularly given how close this release was to the Luna Park one - which only contributes to the impression of Dream Theater needlessly flooding the market. Maybe I could give it more of a chance if these nagging technical issues didn't keep taking me out of it - there's nothing wrong with the performance here, if anything the band are at the top of their game - but in this case, their live recording setup wasn't keeping pace with them.

Warthur Though released in late 2013, a few months after they put out their self-titled album, Dream Theater's Live At Luna Park actually captures a 2012 residency at the titular venue hailing from the Dramatic Turn of Events tour - hence the daredevil unicyclist from that cover appearing here.

That album was, of course, largely an exercise in reassuring listeners that Dream Theater could still be Dream Theater without Mike Portnoy at the drum stool, though it managed to pull through on the strength of its material. Here, the band seem to be doing the same thing from the perspective of live albums - demonstrating to fans that we needn't worry, new boy Mike Mangini can drum for absurd amounts of time just like Mike Portnoy could. The three-CD live album had become something of a calling card for Dream Theater - though by this point in their career they tended to be coupled to DVDs - and so this seems to have been an exercise in demonstrating that the adjusted lineup could still do this.

It's not bad, on the whole, but it doesn't feel compelling necessary either. Unless you are a true zealot, there's a point where you've kind of got enough live Dream Theater, and though the focus here on material from A Dramatic Turn of Events at least means there's fresh stuff here, there's more that could have been done to shake up the set list. There's a bizarre lack of material from Black Clouds and Silver Linings, despite that they hadn't done any of their 3CD live albums since the Systematic Chaos tour, so that's an entire well of material left unaccountably untapped. Chunks of this material has already had good airings on live albums, and the strong focus on material from Images and Words and Awake makes the set list feel lop-sided - Octavarium, Six Degrees, and Metropolis also get a look-in, but there's several albums which just get overlooked entirely.

To an extent, of course, that's a testament to the strength of Dream Theater's body of work - of course you can come up with a 3 hour-plus setlist only working from a fraction of their back catalogue, they've got an embarrassment of riches to choose from! At the same time, it does make the setlist feel a bit off, and between this and them sticking fairly closely to the studio renditions for the most part it just makes the whole thing seem inessential compared to prior live releases. It comes across as Dream Theater putting out these super-long live albums because they feel an obligation to, rather than (as with Live Scenes From New York) it felt like the natural and artistically appropriate choice. If my feeling on that is correct, that's an issue; if it's not, it's still a problem, because it means the album's failed to convince me on that front.

Either way, this captures a solid performance so I can't rate it down too much, it just doesn't quite have the magic of Scenes From New York.

Warthur Dream Theater might have thought that their triple live album schtick was starting to wear thin after Live Scenes, Budokan, and Score, because for Chaos In Motion the triple CD is only actually available with the DVD set (though most of the live album - bar an intro track and a keyboard improvisation - is available streaming). I don't think they need to have worried; this live sampling of the Systematic Chaos tour absolutely cooks.

Naturally, Systematic Chaos itself is well-represented, with all but two of its songs represented (those being Repentance and Prophets of War, the latter of which I considered one of the weaker songs on that album). In the Presence of Enemies is presented as one single 26 minute song, rather than split into two halves on the album, which is interesting in itself. As far as dipping into the band's past goes, honourable mention has to go to the extended version of Surrounded from Images and Words, extending it from a five and a half minute piece to a fifteen minute workout which ends up being a medley incorporating a good chunk of Marillion's Sugar Mice, which is a fantastic interpretation of what is already an incredible song.

It's surprising to find that Dream Theater are still excelling to this level on these triple live releases at a point when you would have thought that these would start getting redundant, but I genuinely think Chaos In Motion is an overlooked and undervalued part of their discography and it's well worth a revisit... just, lads, consider a standalone CD reissue, will ya?