DREAM THEATER — Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (review)

DREAM THEATER — Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence album cover

Album · 2002 · Progressive Metal

4.5/5 · 2010-05-29
AtomicCrimsonRush

Question: How do you follow up on a masterpiece such as 'Scenes From a Memory'?

Answer: Present a heavier album that emphasises symphonic prog and insert a 42 minute track that takes up an entire CD.

The CD2 track is a multimovement suite that moves from heavy to soft tones at intervals and blends in a series of tracks to form one masterpiece. The 8 tracks blend seamlessly and Dream Theater often play this in its entirety in their live shows, and a good example is the version on the DVD 'Score'. The wall of sound that Dream Theater create and the way in which it builds to a crescendo makes this epic track stand out as not only one of the greatest Dream Theater tracks of all time, but prog in general. The 'Overture' begins majestically and then builds headlong into the crunching break neck speed of 'About to Crash'. The piece realzes into a soothing acoustic blend with 'Solitary Shell' sung brillaintly with depth of feeling from La Brie. The Grand Finale ends the track on a high note - all comes full circle and the story ends with that ray of hope and optimism that is akin to Dream Theater's tracks.

It is worth buying this CD for the epic alone, but there is so much more to this than some fans give credit.

CD1 begins with a bone crunching killer guitar riff in 'The Glass Prison' which is a 14 minute classic. The pace continues to bhuld throughout and awesome guitar lead work permeates the track from Petrucci as well as Portnoy's relentless drum patterns.

'Blind Faith' settles into a driving rhythm that shifts into various time signatures. Not my favourite track but still has some merit for its musical virtuoso performances from the band. I love the vocal performance from LaBrie too, as always he really manages to belt out the lyrics with total conviction. 'Misunderstood' is the weaker track perhaps due to the monotony of the melody. It has some interesting moments. 'The Great Debate' is a wonderful interplay of lead guitar and drumming as LaBrie sings about the deep matters of a contentious issue that we are all aware of, but what can be done? There are no answers supplied, only food of thought about the debatable topic that I won't go into here. Suffice it to say the music alone is worth a listen.

'Disappear' ends CD1 and for some reason has disappeared from my memory but I recall at least that it was a nice tune and featured some awesome bass and drums throughout. There was experimental work with the keyboards, but I cant recall what the song was about for some reason.

So there you have it. A much maligned piece from Dream Theater - at times moving and innovative with brilliant musical virtuosity - at other times not so inspired and a bit tame. However, there is no denying the work on CD2 is as about as good as it gets for Dream Theater. If you havent heard CD2 at least, you haven't heard the best of Dream Theater.