Dream Theater
When Dream and Day Unite

THE REVIEW

What was the historical event of 1989? The fall of the Berlin Wall? No! The release of the first album by the legendary Dream Theater! In the same year I was born, five guys from Boston kicked off their dazzling career. They did it with an album that was not yet a product of their maximum expressive capacity, an album that wasn't enough to push them to success but still provided an excellent taste of what they would go on to achieve later.

In this debut album, the influences of classic metal prevail, but there is already a good dose of progressive influences. However, the sound seems quite poor, giving almost the impression that it was poorly recorded. The singer was someone else, Charlie Dominici, whose voice did not yet reach the magnitudes that would come later from James LaBrie. The songs do not yet have the particular structure that those of Images And Words would have, and there is not a single ballad, but the album can be considered decent as a first attempt.

"A Fortune In Lies" we can already admire Dream Theater at work: short structure but good tempo changes, good keyboard accompaniment, and also a nice solo by Petrucci... The first in a long series. "Status Seeker" is a song with lively and sunny tones, notable for the excellent introduction offered by Kevin Moore in a very Van Halen style. A first semi-masterpiece can instead be "The Ytse Jam" an instrumental where the band's technical and virtuoso side immediately emerges; but a masterpiece can also be "The Killing Hand" with its eight minutes and forty seconds alternating powerful guitars, semi-acoustic parts, atmospheric music, and soul influences. It deserves some more attention "Light Fuse And Get Away", a track with fast rhythms that offers a small instrumental section where Kevin Moore shows off a good keyboard solo. More frantic instead is "Afterlife", the most aggressive based on the strong guitar timbre; the instrumental part is also beautiful where we witness a nice solo by Petrucci and a nice guitar-keyboard unison. A glaring missed masterpiece is "The Ones Who Help To Set The Sun": textbook start with keyboards joined to the bass, almost fairy tale or Cinderella cartoon atmosphere but when it kicks in with the guitars... it transforms into a bland, repetitive and not very creative riff. In "Only A Matter Of Time" Kevin Moore is the protagonist: he is the one who perfectly introduces the track but he is also the one who stands out the most throughout it; the best notes are played right here; the ending is SPLENDID with all the instruments playing louder and louder until suddenly vanishing.

Overall, not bad, but the best always comes later, in everything.