Released in 2022 as part of the ‘Lost Not Forgotten Archives’ series, ‘Live At Wacken (2015)’ sees Dream Theater make a stop on their 30th Anniversary tour at the world-famous German heavy metal festival.

With only an hour to spare, the band make a brief run through a number of their albums, with a set list that incorporates all their major elements, both heavy and melodic (‘As I Am’, ‘Panic Attack’, ‘The Spirit Carries On’), and full-on progressive (‘Metropolis Pt. 1’). No easy task, given the wealth of their back-catalogue, as well as the duration of most of their songs.

As expected, the musicianship is superb, with the band on top form and really smashing the instrumental side of things. Sadly, as always, vocalist James LaBrie is tough to listen to at times, especially on the older material. He’s struggling, but he tries anyway. Bless him.

Overall, ‘Live At Wacken’ is a decent enough live album. It’s not essential by any stretch, but die-hard collectors will certainly enjoy owning it and giving it a spin or two.

‘Live At Madison Square Garden (2010)’, recorded July 12th 2010 at the “world’s most famous arena”, sees Dream Theater playing to their hometown crowd as the opening act for metal legends Iron Maiden. The fact that Dream Theater are a headline band themselves shows how much of a big gig this was for them, and so I can totally understand why they’d want to release this under their line of “Lost Not Forgotten” series.

Consisting of six tracks and clocking in at only 50 minutes, this is a relatively short affair as far as Dream Theater live albums go. The set list caters to the heavier side of their fanbase, which would make sense considering who they were opening for, although surely Maiden fans wouldn’t have cared that much. I’m sure most of them probably like Dream Theater anyway.

As for the recording itself… it’s okay, I guess. The sound is fine, the playing is flawless, although LaBrie’s vocals, as always, are a little strained live. Drummer Mike Portnoy randomly speaks a number of times mid-song, which shows us his enthusiasm and excitement, but probably irritated the hell out of his bandmates. Two months after this concert happened, he would do the unthinkable by handing in his notice and departing the band he helped form.

Overall, ‘Live At Madison Square Garden’ fits the bill perfectly for this line of releases. It’s a nice gem for collectors to own, and highlights a special moment in the bands history, but ultimately, after a couple of listens, it doesn’t really have that much replay value. OCD completionists, like me, will snap this up, regardless.

Nickelback fan here! Hi everyone! I love this band. I don’t care if they’re soppy, radio-friendly pop stars, or hard rockin’ heroes, these guys know how to write catchy, memorable songs, that are easy to get into, and are great to sing along to, or great to just flat out bang your head to. For all the hate they get, I think the Canadian quartet are massively underrated as songwriters.

But yeah, this album, ‘No Fixed Address’, isn’t very good.

They’ve stuck to their formula, with some songs massively overproduced to give them a huge sound, and plenty of melodic soppiness cater-made for pop fans, but I just really can’t get into these tracks. Sorry guys. I’m still a fan. As always, praise to Chad Kroeger’s vocals, which are always a joy to listen to (I for one, think he’s a fantastic vocalist), but overall, the songs are just pretty dull and uninteresting.

This album does have its moments though, with two absolute bangers in particular. ‘A Million Miles Away‘ is a huge, upbeat and energetic track that starts the album with some promise, but the true gem is the cheesy but infectiously fun ‘She Keeps Me Up’ (bet you weren’t expecting that, were you?). As goofy and mainstream-friendly as they can get, this song is genuinely fun to listen to, incredibly catchy and full of positive energy. Honestly, I love it!

But sadly, that’s as far as it goes with this record. I love Nickelback, and I know they still have plenty of hits left in them, but for no viable reason other than “I can’t get into it”, I just can’t get into it.

‘Three Days Grace’ is the 2003 self-titled debut album by Canadian three-piece rock band, Three Days Grace. With nu metal dying down and with bands like Nickelback gaining mainstream superstardom, it was a natural process that the next big thing was all this guitar-driven hard rock, often cited as “post-grunge” (whatever the hell that means).

Three Days Grace were one of the more prominent bands of this next trend. They were young, good looking, wrote emotional (or “whiny”) songs and were tailor-made for radio.

But what I didn’t realise back then (it took me a while to get into this group), is that frontman Adam Gontier and co. have a great knack for some catchy, memorable hooks! Is this album repetitive? Yeah. Does it tick every radio-friendly box? Yeah, pretty much. But is it easy to listen to, and memorable enough to make me sing along, even when I don’t think I actually know the lyrics? Damn right!

Don’t get me wrong, this album is nothing new, fresh or unique. But why does it have to be? This is just some good, catchy, inoffensive radio rock, heavy music for people who may not like heavy music. Songs like ‘Let You Down’, ‘Just Like You’, ‘Burn’, ‘Home’, and smash hit ‘I Hate Everything About You’ are all good enough tracks to warrant checking these guys out, and bearing in mind their youth when this came out, it’ll certainly be interesting to see how they might improve with age.

Whenever a band releases a self-titled album, there’s always that feeling that this is their definitive piece of work, something that so truly encapsulates their sound and legacy that no mere title will do. Simply put, this is supposed to be THE Dream Theater album.

And yet, it’s just that. Another Dream Theater album.

The progressive metal legends have been one of my all-time favourite bands since the early 2000’s, and each of their previous twelve studio albums or EP’s have all garnered a four or five-star rating. But sadly, the band have finally put out an album that doesn’t quite match up.

Why? I don’t know… the magic just isn’t there. Whilst previous album ‘A Dramatic Turn of Events’ saw the band continue onwards after the departure of original drummer Mike Portnoy, this outing is starting to show that perhaps without Portnoy’s drive and vision, the band really are on autopilot.

All the usual traits are here. Absolutely fantastic musicianship, with incredible chemistry between guitarist John Petrucci and keyboardist Jordan Rudess, and James LaBrie’s voice still sounds great despite wear-and-tear. But the songs, ugh, they’re not awful, but damn, these took a lot longer to get into than previous output. ‘The Looking Glass’ and ‘Along For the Ride’ are pretty decent, and the usual “epic track” of the album, ‘Illumination Theory’ is pretty good, but nowhere near holds up to classics like ‘A Change of Seasons’, ‘Octavarium’ and ‘The Count of Tuscany’.

Overall, ‘Dream Theater’ isn’t a bad album, it’s just, kind of there. When I can be bothered to listen to it, it’s alright, and has its moments, but mostly, I just find that I can’t really be bothered to actually listen to it.