The all star band which recently lost its renowned drummer mike portnoy released an album titled 'A Dramatic change of events'. The album as such has all amazing songs which are a pleasure to listen to like any other DT song. I think that the album is a letdown for hardcore fans.
The band has been as it is criticized for losing out on their star drummer and the new drummer has been under scrutiny. Talking about drummers if you listen to the album we notice that in almost all the songs there is no sign of the drummer trying to dominate or make his presence felt in comparison to what mike portnoy has done. In one or two songs its visible like maybe bridges in the sky. That is the only song which has can be classified as a DT like song as there is a perfect fusion of all instruments.
In most of the songs the keyboards have been used extensively and the others have not been given much of the spotlight. If you listen to any other song by them we will notice that there is an equilibrium maintained in which all the musicians are given proper importance.
Another letdown can be said to be that of the role of john petrucci. Being a hardcore fan of him myself I felt bad when I did not come across any solo with crazy shreds and the odd really fast sweep which makes the songs almost impossible to cover exactly.
One of my favourite songs from this album has been breaking all illusions. The song has a metalcore touch to it and reminds me of bands like killswitch engage and as i lay dying. The main riff itself sounds very much like the metal core riff. The vocals in that song and the bass lines have been outstanding there. The solo in this song was a let down for me. It was played on a US Blues sort of patch. Though the solo had some parts which sounded very bluesy on the whole the petrucci tried to bring in his feel and sounded more like malmsteen's solo's. The slight delay in the patch made the solo sound sexy. Though there is a good bit of shredding towards the end of the solo on the whole it was a disappointment to me.
The last song titled Beneath the Surface is such a beautiful song that anyone who listens to music will fall in love with it. Its a beautiful soft melody based song with not much complexities and intricacies. I was hoping for a beautiful guitar solo to top it off instead of the keyboard fill. Nonetheless the song is still amazing.
The song build me up, break me down has a real cool guitar riff but the starting and the beat in that song is kind of upsetting. The way the effects had been put in initially shook me for a minute. I suppose they were experimenting with the album as the drummer is gone now new ideas might be flowing in leading to change in Dream Theater. This is my interpretation of the album.
