Dream Theater
A View From The Top Of The World

The halt to concerts also brought Dream Theater into the studio, and according to many, the break did them good. "A View from the Top of the World," the fifteenth work by the masters of progressive metal, has surprisingly been favored even by the band's harshest critics, and it may be their most appreciated work in quite some time. I'll try to explain why, and I'll do so quite impartially.

The starting premise is one: it's a true progressive metal album, it's an album that sounds Dream Theater through and through, and apparently, this is what the demanding Dream Theater fan wants; it's not recently that I've noticed this, since I've been following Dream Theater for over 15 years now and couldn't help but notice that the band receives constant criticism every time they attempt a path different from their own.

An album that fully achieves the balance between aggression, virtuosity, and melody, precisely the combination on which progressive metal is founded. In recent times, this balance was also achieved in "A Dramatic Turn of Events" - it's no coincidence that that album also received solid acclaim - but there, a sense of self-citation and blatant structural similarity to "Images and Words" hovered, which couldn't escape our ears and ended up slightly tainting the fun. Even in the 2019 work "Distance Over Time," there was a certain sense of balance, but there, the band tried to be more concise and sharp.

The band here returns to its most suitable formula: after three albums where medium-short duration prevailed, they return to favor long tracks. Few tracks (just 7) but beautifully long, the ultimate progressive formula. It's no secret that the band gives its best precisely when relying on long duration, because these five musicians are a meeting of so many ideas that it's challenging to condense everything into just a few minutes. In all this, the emphasis is placed more than ever on the progressive component, in the foreground compared to the metal one. The fundamental dilemma in the debate about Dream Theater is... "are they a progressive band with a strong metal component or a metal band with a strong progressive component?" Regarding the '90s, the answer was undoubtedly the former, but the new millennium raises doubts; on some occasions, Dream Theater have indeed played tough metalheads, with peaks in albums like "Train of Thought," much of "Black Clouds and Silver Linings," and "Systematic Chaos," making several fans wrinkle their noses. In this work, however, metal is present regularly without ever wanting to prevail, it integrates into the instrumental network, it blends into it, and you almost don't notice you're listening to a metal band; yet the metal is there calmly under our ears. Not even in the tracks that are more explicitly hard like "Answering the Call" or "Awaken the Master" do the five act like rough metalheads; these aren't tracks that would fit perfectly into "Train of Thought." Essentially, it's what happened in the masterpieces of the '90s, metal yes, but in the right measure, metal in service of the compositions and not the core of them. If you're pure and raw metalheads, it's not exactly what suits you, don't insist on finding the part for wild headbanging because you'll be disappointed.

But the real strength, the one that makes one shout at a masterpiece as in the old days, is another: fluidity. The tracks flow wonderfully, the individual instrumental segments follow each other and fit together with a fearsome naturalness, every little piece really seems to be there in its place and truly gives the impression of being the right counterpart of the previous one; everything happens at the right moment, there's never a sense of force, of constraint, of part forcefully inserted; even the solos, the easiest thing to paste anywhere without criterion (as happened, for example, on many occasions in "Black Clouds and Silver Linings"), arrive at the right moment and follow the plot; it practically feels like the tracks wrote themselves and as if the parts assembled themselves without anyone's help. Similarly, there's practically nothing that gets dragged out; this time, Dream Theater know when it's time to cut it off. Several times in the past, they have given the impression of having stretched the broth too much, of having unnecessarily inflated some tracks, think, for example, of the excessively long and repetitive final sections of "Finally Free," "In the Name of God," "Repentance," "The Count of Tuscany". Other times, there were parts that seemed forced, that had little to do with the rest of the track, think of the instrumental sections of "The Ministry of Lost Souls" or "A Rite of Passage." None of this happens here.

In its classicism as a progressive metal album, there are nonetheless elements that spark some interest; we'll analyze them track by track, but one above all is the use of various orchestral inserts; from time to time, they intervene with powerful and striking openings that aren't that common for Dream Theater. In a sense, one could say they haven't entirely abandoned the solutions of "The Astonishing," and I'm still sorry they didn't continue that discussion but at least tried to salvage some ideas from it. However, nothing truly revolutionary, I've said many times that Dream Theater is not the band that advances the genre today, so beware of getting your hopes up.

A curious and quite unusual characteristic is the total absence of ballads or similar ballads, something that has only happened once before, in the first historic album of 1989. Truth be told, neither "Systematic Chaos" nor the self-titled "Dream Theater" had a true ballad, but they still had the slow and relaxed track; here, not even that. Is it that after "The Astonishing," they had enough? Is it the fear of drowning in sweetness? Indeed, the only ballad on the previous album was quite bland and they must have realized it; the fact is that this allows the band to fully concentrate on their own style, to deepen it to the best of their ability; joking aside, we're facing the most purely prog-metal album of their discography; only one track (softer than normal) deviates slightly, in the past more tracks deviated from the style.

And there's also a word to be said about some singles. The drummer Mike Mangini, protagonist of a great process of personal growth, offers his best performance, rich with lightning dynamism and surprising rhythmic solutions; the more time passes, the more lamenting Portnoy becomes inappropriate and out of place. This time, however, it’s even the most controversial member of the band, James LaBrie, who surprises: for years his obituary has been recited, he's been talked about as a singer who's past his prime and continues to persevere, some even pray that someone stops him... yet here he also does his part, brings out the grit, modulates his voice oscillating between melodic opening and more aggressive roar; he may not be the same LaBrie as before, but he remembers he has versatility.

But let's see what the album holds track by track, to better understand. The first track "The Alien" is simply the best example of smoothness, the choice to present it as the first single seems right: the dynamism is impressive, the guitar and bass riffs go everywhere, Mangini is unpredictable and chaotic, overturning patterns in a second, yet everything with incredible order and driven by perfect logic; it's the vortex track par excellence.

"Answering the Call" is the heaviest track but doesn't aim to be the default flashy track, on the contrary, it has tantalizing ideas and a peculiar sound: it stands out for a sci-fi movie atmosphere, there are effects similar to helicopters and onboard computers, as well as notable orchestral openings.

"Invisible Monster" is the album's commercial track, so to speak, that heavy and more direct song found in almost every album. Actually, not even that heavy, it doesn't stomp as much as it would like, the die-hard metalhead would wrinkle their nose, structurally similar to "Pull Me Under" and a bit also to "A Rite of Passage" but doesn't echo their power, doesn't leave the same mark; I think it's only right to acknowledge that it is the least exciting track of the album, it is the stereotype catchy track par excellence, sacrificing musical solidity for easy consumption, has practically the logic of a pop song without being one.

"Sleeping Giant," however, brings everything back to high ranks with more very cool ideas. Sounds with gothic atmospheres, wide and scratchy guitar riffs with a metal wickedness but with a hard rock aftertaste that tempers them, hammerings of distorted organ at the edge of noisy, orchestral flares and much more.

"Transcending Time" is another of those sporadic attempts by Dream Theater to unmistakably mimic the Rush, it would have fit perfectly in their self-titled 2013 album. It is still the most melodic episode of the album, the episode furthest from the metal that never fails in each work. The riffs lean more towards melodic hard rock, even some acoustic touches appear; Jordan Rudess rediscovers his most elegant side in the piano parts and when placing synth passages he explores his keyboard well in search of a broad-ranging melody.

The most significant innovation, however, concerns "Awaken the Master": John Petrucci uses an 8-string guitar for the first time; a photo of the new model had already surfaced from the "Distance Over Time" sessions but didn't find a place in any track of the album, but now Petrucci has decided to inaugurate it. I loved its razor-sharp sound thanks to the use by Haken and I was very curious to see how it would render on a Dream Theater track. The result is undoubtedly stunning, the riffs are real blades and drag the listener into an overwhelming vortex, and they do so without veering into extreme metal, which is very easy with an 8-string; instead, much space is left for classic and symphonic openings, sometimes cinematic, also interesting is the bass line at the edge of funk in the second verse.

And then there's the suite that gives the album its title, comparable to "The Odyssey" by Symphony X for its Hollywood impact or to "Visions" by Haken from a structural point of view. It too is a treasure chest of many beautiful things, even unusual ones. The initial part, with sounds of strings, brass, and even harps, is practically entrance music for a film epic, a level of theatricality rarely belonging to the band; the final part is also surprising, with hard riffs on a slow part, a solution that almost approaches doom but without touching that type of dark sound; in between, there are gallops at the edge of power metal, a powerful metallic bass section, a long slow and relaxed part, Rudess's usual fantasies and much more.

And so? What is the moral of all this? Dream Theater have managed to cling to their classicism, remodeling it intelligently, I believe this is the key to success.