It had been such a long time since I'd given this album a listen, years even, but I'm so glad I had the incredible urge to go on an Iron Maiden binge which is something I hadn't done in even longer.

The magic of the band is with me yet again. Somewhere In Time was perhaps the album that struck me the most when I gave all my Maiden records a listen again, it being a bit more energetic and full of a sort of raw power. Dickinson's vocals are top-notch (as always) and tracks like "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" are just really great tunes.

I guess that's what Maiden does, they keep a strikingly similar formula through most of their albums and it really works for them. Especially on this album, the band's true epitome is indefinable because of how many solid records they released but if I was held at gunpoint, I'd say this was it.

Simply a record with some great energetic tunes that aren't achieved by any other band.

An excellent post-metal release that I came across not too long ago and was rather surprised with given that this is the bands only release and it's been four years without any more material.

Nevertheless, this album was a real breath of fresh air in the post-metal category where I had almost gotten too deep in sludgey type post-metal (which is good but I'd had a little much). It is basically really heavy post-rock that never goes too far metal. I thought that was kind of a cool thing as I had never heard something like that.

With each track hitting about 10 minutes, you get similarly arranged piece that are all pretty good (except at times they are almost too similar, like, "didn't I just hear this?") and apart from the occasional growl, this metal is so atmospheric you hardly notice it's metal.

A fun listen indeed, I'd recommend it to fans of post-rock and post-metal.

Dirge has had a hard time releasing any bad material it seems, the past three records have all been excellent and Elysian Magnetic Fields may be one of the best.

The album is just as good as Wings of Lead Over Dormant Seas only trimmed down in length greatly which makes the album much more easy to listen to and thus more easy to enjoy. Dirge never fails to come up with some really sludge-laden riffs of greatness and this album just swims in them.

No one particular track stands out and like most albums from this genre, they're meant to be listened to as a whole. I mean, it's a sonic masterpiece, these guys are so good at sludge.

An enjoyably dark record in the vein of the previous two, which in case you don't know Dirge is a definite plus.

I was really excited about this album when it was first coming out because I had just learned to really love The Mantle which was one of my favorite metal records of all time. I mean, this was coming out when that album really just clicked with me so how could I not be excited? Agalloch was going to amaze me again!

Well, they didn't really, but that's ok because this album is still pretty great despite being a real step down from The Mantle. There are no passages that really grabbed my attention but the album as a whole is perhaps much more consistent and exploratory. It delves into a much more metal territory than I had even heard the band go and I think that's part of it's charm. It's not stunning but it is indeed an enjoyable listen and that can't be denied.

The clearly stand-out track is the fourth one, Black Lake Nidstang which is Agalloch's folky black metal taken to places it previously has not been. This track, in essence, is what the album as a whole is trying to achieve. The rest of the tracks are basically on par with perhaps the exception of the final one which is part of the reason the record is a bit less exciting, it does not really end the album in a way I would like it to. Nonetheless, it's not a bad track at all.

For fans of Agalloch, definitely, but don't expect another The Mantle-esque record.

They haven't done anything this good in a long, long time. Too long as a matter of fact, this is the best thing since Images & Words, the band's best record. It's not an exaggeration to say that this album is quite possibly Dream Theater's second best record ever.

Enough with all the rambling and onto why the record is good. Bottomline is Dream Theater does metal really badly and I think that Mike Portnoy tried to force feed a metal sound into the band's chemistry. What Dream Theater is really good at is progressive metal and with Portnoy gone it really sounds like the band came together and explored their sonic capabilities. We see that they're very much capable of greatness.

A Dramatic Turn of Events contains from start to finish material that rivals parts of Scenes From a Memory and is almost on par with Images & Words. The band sounds much more original than they have the past decade and you can sit back and listen to this record without any regrets.

Let yourself experience the true rebirth of a metal great, let Rudess and Petrucci take you on a ride completely free of the metal limitations they previously had. See for yourself how good this record is.