Dream Theater
Black Clouds & Silver Linings

But what the hell am I writing it for... I don't even know if it's worth it anymore.

I know there are other reviews out there about the same album, but I really wanted to say my piece about it. Just this once. And it will be the last time.

By now, it should be pretty clear to everyone. And, when I say everyone, I obviously exclude from the sample the crowd of narrow-minded Dream Theater fans who will enthusiastically praise any album by the Theater of Dreams which, today, has become the Theater of Nightmares (or the Macabre, if you prefer).

An album with 6 tracks, 74 minutes long. The total is: 2 MASSIVE TESTICLES!

Do Portnoy and company really think they can pull the wool over our eyes by releasing albums like this? Albums where, in every track, the only thing we can clearly distinguish is the musicians' skill, which, quite frankly, I couldn't care less about? Do they really have such a damn limited mindset?

Still, I repeat, I'm not one to generalize. Just because the latest releases from Dream Theater acted as laxatives doesn't mean that the last one, the 2009 one, that damn "Black Clouds & Whatever" should have had the same effect.

Unfortunately, I had to change my mind right after the first song, which had a more devastating effect (in terms of time) than even Gutalax.

"A Nightmare To Remember" (and who can forget it...) is a truly empty and idiotic song, with an endless duration, where, as a point of originality, the DT get their white-voiced singer to growl (yes! There are growls, you heard correctly! And who cares!).

After barely managing to escape from this crappy track, here comes a distortion riff, with all of Portnoy's skill, ready to introduce the second course: "A Rite Of Passage". Yes, a rite of passage is what awaits us all. A one-way passage to the afterworld. Solos and virtuoso scales that we've now memorized, breaks that, like the solos, we know like the back of our hand... Another ballbreaker I can't resist. The pain is felt more intensely, but I courageously move on. And I continue.

I continue after over 8 minutes of torment. And I find myself facing the ballad of the album, which is "Winter", perhaps the only decent track of the entire album. Because, may God forgive them, this time the DT remember to be metalheads and include a truly inspired solo in a ballad with a very hard rock-oriented flavor. Stop! It's nothing spectacular, but it gives me a sigh of relief when I think that later, I'll have to endure endless suites once again.

Suites that I won't describe or list. For simple reasons. The first is that, by now, an album of 6 tracks that barely stands on one song that is, mostly, just the ballad of the aforementioned album is, to say the least, pathetic. Pathetic and embarrassing. Pathetic and embarrassing for the band that produced it but, above all, for the fanbase that will buy it. The usual nerds for whom a world without Dream Theater would be, you know, a world without sex for any other human being.

Then. Pity. Yes, I pity La Brie, Portnoy, and company.

The only thing that emerges from this album is confusion, deafening noise, a vain attempt at self-celebration over and over.

But, Christ, we've understood that you are brilliant virtuosos and you know how to handle your instruments, but I don't feel the pathos in their albums. Albums full of all that stuff that makes technics go wild, albums full of tapping, sweeping, bending, [insert expletive]-ing and all those things ending in "ing" but, at the same time, sterile as a cow ready for the slaughter.

The void. The nothingness.

Except, maybe, for a sense of innate pain in the testicles... Yes. "Black Clouds & Silver Linings" hurts much more than a hammer to the balls. Guaranteed.

Don't buy it, don't burn it, and don't even think of downloading it. It's absolutely not worth the pain (or the tool).

Unless you crave every abomination Dream Theater produces. But those are all your own problems (and, in reality, they are really big, big, huge problems...).

It's all so... Simply craptacular.