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Rating:
OK, ok. I used to appreciate Dream Theater, I was a fan, I admit it. With "Images and Words," I got into Metal, and particularly into progressive metal, only to practically abandon it completely after listening to bands such as Sonic Youth, Pixies, Dinosaur Jr, and Pere Ubu. What can you do, years go by, and tastes evolve (hopefully always qualitatively). I might seem harsh towards the Boston ensemble, but when it comes down to it, today I consider the Theater of Dreams the ultimate embodiment of mediocrity and complete artistic nothingness made Rock.
After listening to ‘Systematic Chaos,’ anyone who cares about the safety of their hearing not only won’t escape noticing that it reaches unmatched heights of creative flatness, but will probably have to reconsider any positive opinion (like I did) they had regarding albums like "I&W" and "Awake." Yes, because in front of such a disaster, one reaches the point of suspecting that maybe DT never had anything to say, and that at least in their early albums, they said it well. Now, however, they say it poorly, very poorly.
What awaits you after inserting the disc into the player is, therefore, an Anti-Art endurance test. Ready, set, go. Here's the first jumble of progressive metal clichés, "In the Presence of Enemies Pt.1" (yes, unfortunately, there’s also part 2, which is even worse, with a bass loop and a "windy" introduction reminiscent of "One Of These Days" by Floyd, followed by an IDENTICAL metal outburst like the one in "The Glass Prison"). An intro that directly recalls Rush (particularly "Freewill"), where Rudess "borrows" from their synth sound. This so-called masterpiece continues with a Petrucci solo representing a cross between the final one in "Octavarium" and the one in "Overture 1928", borrowing the epicness from the former and the airy dynamics from the latter. A prime example of recycling, really. The second part of the song proceeds with Labrie's non-essential singing, over a melodic line as we’ve heard from our dear old James hundreds of times, in full post-romantic style. Do you want me to tell you about "Forsaken"? Ehm, there's not much to say… a rock ballad in Evanescence Style (!) with a saccharine, redundant baroque voice.
“The Dark Eternal Night”, if possible, is even more insipid than the previous ones: it starts with a riff reminiscent of the already mentioned “The Glass Prison”, reaching the singing with (I presume) Labrie and Portnoy’s filtered voices, just to make it all more "aggressive", but instead achieving the opposite result of seeming pathetic, to say the least... they wouldn’t scare an earthworm. Then the disaster continues with an ENDLESS string of ABSOLUTELY pointless technicalities, embarrassing, derivative of previous records (do you hear that keyboard piece sibling of "The Dance Of Eternity" and cousin of "Endless Sacrifice"?). And the Petrucci solo? Here it comes! You were eagerly waiting for it, right? And John throws it in there... how nauseating. "Repentance" is shameful for its mainstream pseudo-psychedelia, tiresome and irritating, with that guitar tune for braindead people you’re forced to endure from "Train Of Thought". And they want to pass it off as an absolute gem, when in reality it’s a blatant manifestation of a chronic lack of ideas. "The Ministry Of Lost Soul" let me just say it starts (and ends) with a "majestic" and clichéd melody borrowed from "Zombie" by the Cranberries (what immense sadness), the rest is the usual ultra-conventional and saccharine suite branded DT.
Ah, but I was forgetting that absolute masterpiece "Constant Motion", the epitome of dreamtheaterian "creativity": the piece in question is nothing more than (in the verse) a cover of "Blackened" by Metallica and a "tribute" to "This Dying Soul" (a track from TOT which itself previously paid homage to Hatfield & Friends' "Darkness"). "Prophets Of War" has a Muse aftertaste, ultra-banale melody and, beware, another riff stolen from the 'Tallica, but not from the overused "Blackened" this time (Wow!), but from the famous "Wherever I May Roam". When one says "they don't know what to do anymore"... a real "systematic chaos" indeed.
I apologize to you, reader, if this review turned into a game similar to the Enigmatic Week "Find the (not at all) hidden similarities between DT and other Earth bands", but I could write nothing else. Small (and only) positive note regards the production: the guitar is finally free from that terrible "Nu Metal acne-ridden fourteen-year-olds' effect", that plagued the previous two albums, still suffering from that not at all recommendable "glossy" flavor.
But the question naturally arises: what’s the point of potentially good production when the product is missing? You ask them, I have lost the hope of getting an answer.
P.S.: However, I do have a question for LaBrie… LaBrì, but was the D'Artagnan look really necessary?? Aaaaah, damn image marketing...
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Forsaken (05:35)
For a while
I thought I fell asleep
Lying motionless inside a dream
Then rising suddenly
I felt a chilling breath upon me
She softly whispered in my ear
Forsaken
I have come for you tonight
Awaken
Look in my eyes and take my hand
Give yourself up to me
I waited painfully
For night to fall again
Trying to silence the fear within me
Out of an ivory mist
I felt a stinging kiss
And saw a crimson stain on her lips
I have to know your name
Where have I seen your face before?
My dear one don't you be afraid
Forsaken
I have come for you tonight
Awaken
Look in my eyes and take my hand
Give yourself up to me
Take me far away
Close your eyes
And hold your breath
To the ends of the earth
Forsaken
I have come for you tonight
Awaken
Look in my eyes and take my hand
Forsaken
Fly away with me tonight
Awaken
Renew my life
Now you are mine
Give yourself up to me
03 Constant Motion (06:55)
Tunnel vision at blinding speed
Controlling my thoughts, obsessing me
Void of any uncertainty
Throughout my very soul
Lost illusions of mind control
Resisting all hope of letting go
Racing impulse of dark desire
Drives me through the night
I try to shut it down
It leaves me in the dust
No matter what I've found
I can never get enough
Frantic actions of insanity
Impulsive laced profanity
Long for elusive serenity
Way out of my control
Traveling through both space and time
Out of body
Out of mind
Out of control
My wheels in constant motion
Spinning round and round it goes
I can't let up
I can't let go
Can't stop this flame from burning
Forever more
Into the night
Blistering
Focus here, focus there
Cannot see the light
Falling down through the night
Sprawling everywhere
Searching left, searching right
Panic setting in
I can no longer fight
When will this end?
Accelerate, dislocate
Set to crash and burn
Haven't got time to waste
Not planning to return
Aggravate, Agitate
When will I ever learn?
There's no way out of here
Nowhere to turn
Obsessive yearning
Compulsive burning
Still never learning
Insane random thoughts
of neat disorder
Scattered wasteland surrounding me
Tattered memories of what used to be
Apocalyptic mind debris
Until we meet again
Traveling through both space and time
Out of body
Out of mind
Out of control
My wheels in constant motion
Spinning round and round it goes
I can't let up
I cant' let go
Can't stop this flame from burning
Forever more
Into the night
Blistering
Traveling through both space and time
Out of body
Out of mind
Out of control
My wheels in constant motion
Spinning round and round it goes
I can't let up
I can't let go
Can't stop this flame from burning
Can't stop the wheels from turning
Traveling through both space and time
You get yours
And I got mine
Out of control
My wheels in constant motion
Spinning round and round it goes
I can't let up
I can't let go
Can't stop this flame from burning
Forever more
Into the night
Blistering
04 The Dark Eternal Night (08:53)
No one dared to
Speak of the terrible danger
The hideous ancient warnings
Forged in the void of night
He is risen up
Out of the blackness
Chaos
The last of the prophets
Sinister
A sickening monstrous sight
Through the stifling heat
Underneath the pale green moon
I burned with a thirst
To seek things not yet seen
Climbing endless stairs
Leading to the choking room
Eager to explore
His most shocking mysteries
Drifting beyond all time
Out of a churning sky
Drawn to the beckoning light
Of the dark eternal night
Black forces
Rage in the vortex
Fighting
Waves of destruction
Swallowing
The echo of the universe
I am the last
Born of the blood of the pharaohs
The ultimate god of a rotting creation
Sent to unleash this curse
Restless crowds draw near
Nameless hooded forms appear
Amidst fallen ruins
Grotesque creatures battle
Shadowed on a screen
Yellow evil faces leer
Vacant monuments
Corpses of dead worlds left behind
Drifting beyond all time
Out of a churning sky
Drawn to the beckoning light
Of the dark eternal night
Trapped in a hellish dream
Spinning past worlds unseen
And frightfully vanishing
Into the dark eternal night
Drifting beyond all time
Out of a churning sky
Drawn to the beckoning light
Of the dark eternal night
Trapped in a hellish dream
Spinning past worlds unseen
And frightfully vanishing
Into the dark eternal night
05 Repentance (10:43)
Hello Mirror, so glad to see you my friend
It's been a while...
Staring at the empty page before me
All the years of wreckage running through my head
Patterns of my life I thought adorned me
Revealing hurtful shame and deep lament
Overwhelming sorrow now absorbs me
As the pen begins to trace my darkest past
Signs throughout my life
that should have warned me
Of all the wrongs I've done for which I must repent
I once thought it better to regret
Things that I have done than I haven't
Sometimes you've got to be wrong
And learn the hard way
And sometimes you've got to be strong
When you think it's too late
Staring at the finished page before me
All the damage now so clear and evident
Thinking about the dreaded task in store for me
A pit of fear at the thought of my amends
Hoping that the step will help restore me
To face my past and ask for forgiveness
Cleaning up my dirty side of this unswept street
Could this be the beginning of the end?
I once thought it better to regret
Things that I have done than haven't
Sometimes you've got to be wrong
And learn the hard way
And just when you're through hanging on
You're saved.
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Other reviews
By Dolly_Quinn
This album is terrible and represents all those things that are fundamentally wrong with the prog-metal genre.
Systematic Chaos is one of the least valid works ever made in metal.
By paloz
Has no one noticed yet that the band does nothing but slightly modify songs already written in the past?
The DT want to be megalomaniacs, they want to act like they play endless suites...to amaze the drooling followers who would follow them to the world’s end.
By High Voltage
"Systematic Chaos is certainly the album that comes closest to what Dream Theater is today."
"The Ministry Of Lost Souls could be defined as one of the best tracks on the album—almost 15 minutes of pure progressive and pure Dream Theater compositions."
By MarkTwin
A truly brilliant start, that rapid and engaging prog note by note captivates immediately.
With this album, it seems they want to prove that they still want to amaze and experiment, and in my opinion, they have succeeded almost exemplary.
By TheDanceOfEternity
Dream Theater. After 5 minutes and 13 seconds comes the extraordinary singing of James Labrie who, in this song as in all the others, has a very captivating voice.
LONG LIVE PROGRESSIVE, LONG LIVE DREAM THEATER.
