My demons are coming to drown me

Dream Theater: Metropolis pt. 2 – Scenes from a Memory

Prog? Concept album? Cast of characters? Past life regression? Font key for chronological differentiation? Oh dear. You’ve obliterated the fine line between rock opera and progressive concept metal and cluttered it with new age nonsense.

The basic story is as follows – a young man, Nicholas, is having dreams of a girl, Victoria, in a mirror in an abandoned house. As it happens, he was Victoria in a past life, and she was murdered in 1928 by her ex-lover Julian (left because of his drug addictions), who then apparently committed suicide. It turns out that after breaking up with Julian, she was seduced by his brother, Senator Edward Baynes, and that Edward killed them both, and made it look like a murder-suicide. During all this, Nicholas has been undergoing hypnotic regression therapy and researching the murders by going to gravesites and the house, and at the end, the hypnotherapist, who was Edward in a past life, murders him.

A decent storyline, if the past life regression stuff is a bit much. Really, though, it hardly matters, because the music is just so damned satisfying. It’s not just the conceptual storyline that flows from song to song, but the music which flows perfectly, in two lengthy, shifting suites. The instrumental “Overture 1928″ sets up many of the later themes in a conceptual doorway to the regression, and it’s vigorous, virtuoso playing. It stays a bit more on the prog side of things than metal, but in the tightly constructed concept, it fortunately stays with energy rather than dorky noodling. Mike Portnoy and John Myung’s rhythms are ballistic and impressive without being overly showy, John Petrucci is an axe slayer of great magnitude, James LaBrie has none of the irritating vocal tics of most of his peers and quite a range, and Jordan Rudess adds a lot of subtle flavour in his new position as keyboardist.

So as far as this sort of thing goes, it’s not half as embarrassing as most similar excursions are, although the cynic in me winces hard at the exceptionally pompous “The Spirit Carries On” and the spoken hypnotherapist regressions. The musicianship more than makes up for those failings, however, and it’s a damn fine ride (if you’re into this sort of thing).

***1/2

~ by jshopa on August 24, 2008.