Defends throne

The year 2011 is truly a feast for Progressive Metal fans. With the new albums by SYMPHONY X, LEPROUS, procupine TREEs Steve Wilson or COMMUNIC there this year a multi-faceted offer of this genre. Now pull on the Prog Gods DREAM THEATER. With 'a dramatic turn of events' publish the Americans their twelfth album and prove that they have lost in spite of change none of their quality. As everyone should know by now, is the drummer Mike Portnoy, who is not working for TRANSATLANTIC, Neal Morse and shortly also for Avenged Sevenfold longer part of the band. The exact reasons do despite the many rumors on the Internet, only the band itself and this should leave it well. A large-scale search operation now promoted an adequate replacement for days. Mike Mangini, known for his work with ANNIHILATOR, Mullmuzzler or Steve Vai, now sits behind the monstrous drum kit and was therefore unable to musicians such as Peter Wildoer (DARKANE), Derek Roddy (NILE, among others) or the Austrian Thomas Lang (EAV, FALCO , ASIA) prevail.

Works DREAM THEATER without founding member and songwriter Portnoy? Clearly yes. Although he has been instrumental in many pieces of the past albums, the band plays in this constellation together twelve years and also Petrucci, Myung, Rudess and LaBrie proved in the past that they can write brilliant numbers. How does the new Mike fits in the band's sound, we will now find out.

"On The Back Of Angels" was released in advance on the internet and made all right for more. A typical, slightly quieter, but quite dramatically scale DREAM THEATER number that is catchy, but at times behave a little acting. Especially Mike, who still acts virtuously in the first few minutes, holds over the rest discreetly in the background. The choirs and keyboards like but extremely well. Slightly harder parts and much Gefrickel there in the middle part of the 9-minute short. "Build Me Up, Break Me Down" is a bit more daring and rifflastiger. Still, there are enough keys, synths and effects. Also Fronter LaBrie served in between to the latter. The text and the Chrous which is very memorable thanks to good vocal work and beautiful melodies, every fan should let the water run together in the mouth.

With "Lost Not Forgotten" we already have the hardest song on the album. Very dynamic and playful you go here to work. Mangini is raging for the first time correctly and the game on the pool Like extremely well. The ballad "This Is The Life 'within the overall impression something back, but that is at the high quality of DREAM THEATER nothing. In "Bridges From The Sky" there is not just church choirs but also lots of percussion and hefty riffs. The soulful, dramatic vocals of James should be mentioned here. "Outcry" is for me one of the best songs on the album. What Jordan Rudess supplies here on keyboards to brilliant melodies and build up the tension in this song, are second to none. Also, the chorus and the progressive, quite hectic instrumental part are very well done.

The second ballad "Far From Heaven" has failed quite short with four minutes to lucky because even though James is a lot of effort, compared to the rest of the song material is quite dispensable. Anders is the longest song on the album. With "Breaking All Illusions" it provides a very emotional and varied epic as you'd expect from this combo. And with "Beneath The Surface" then you have a positive aligned acoustic ballad with a lot of heart.

DREAM THEATER can with "a dramatic turn of events", which is a cool title, incidentally, dispel any doubts and fears and provide again an extremely strong work which the fans will satisfy. Maybe missing the big surprises and they are a bit softer than previously become, but that you can get over in the strong material. DREAM THEATER stay effortlessly on the throne.