Dream Theater - Train of Thought (2003)

Dream Theater is a pretty divisive band. You either love them or you hate them. I know this saying can be overused, but here it's especially true. The band members are hardly likeable and their music is too excessive and overdone to be appreciated by most casual listeners. They have a big fanbass tho. Am I a part of it??? Uhh not really but let's say it's complicated.

I really want to hate Dream Theater. Like, I don't like James' vocal style, I'm not a fan of Jordan's playing and him as a person, their album art is always beyond terrible... There's so many reasons why they suck. But I always find myself going back to some of their tracks and records. I enjoy some of their post-Metropolis LPs and some Mangini ones too for reasons that I'm not quite sure of. I like Peteucci for example. He's a good guy and a guitar virtuoso that knows how to write a banger riffs, but to say I like him as a guitarist would be an overstatement. His glossy over-the-top solos are not my style at all. His riffs are absolutely terrific tho, especially the 7-string ones (John's work on songs like "S2N" or "Glass Prison" was the direct reason I bought myself a 7-string guitar!). But enough about the band. Let's talk about their 2003 record.

I came back to the band after not listening to them for a couple of years and I went thorugh their LPs from 2000s, like "Black Clouds", "Six Degrees" etc. Although I wasn't crazy about most of them, I was legitimately surprised of how fun "Train of Thought" was. Last time I listened to it was with a friend & some beers after our Porcupine Tree's "Closure Continuation" premiere listening party, so about 4 years ago. I have surprisingly lots of pleasant memories with "Train of Thought" and they all were hitting me one by one when I was going through the tracklist. I forgot all the songs so their heaviness had a mighty effect on me... Wow this album is REALLY heavy. Heavy DT is best DT. I've read that this was the goal from the start because the fans reacted very positively to the manic riffage of "Glass Prison". They succeeded immensly and I'm really grateful that they decided to replace some of the usual wankery with darkness....

As it is with this era of the band, "As I Am", first track of "Train", starts with the chord that the title track (the last song) from "Six Degrees" ends. Then, our eardrums get blown up with the evil and dissonant guitar melody reminiscent of doom metal (and Black Sabbath's first song maybe??) that then transforms into the usual DT marching chug. This is a nice song, I used to like it a lot but nowadays I prefer some later tracks. It's very cool tho, it has all the nice characteristics of the LP, while still being relatively "bite-sized", if you can even say something like this with DT... One interesting thing is that it has very Metallica-esque vibe. At some point towards the end, James (LaBrie) even says the representative "YEAAAH" - the James' (Hetfield's) catchphrase.

"This Dying Soul" is a fantastic prog metal song. It has some thrash metal inspirations and nice harmonious melodies at the same time! It's a second entry in the Portnoy's infamous "12-step suite" which spans throughout this era's releases. I like all the "12-step songs" (they all happened to be really well written and musically interesting), but this could be my favourite. I like the hypnotic clean riff and overall the guitar work here. Vocals are nice too, which is a big rarity! Portnoy tried to do some backing adlibs as usual and even tho usually they are at least mediocore, I think they fit here. This song too has a Metallica moment, so it seems they've been a big inspiration, which is interesting since they ain't nearly as heavy and brutal as this record gets sometimes. Time for a ballad! I was again really surprised how cool "Endless Sacrifice" is! Wow. This song is exceptionally catchy for a long ass prog wank ballady song. Once I've had it stuck in my head do bad that I couldn't sleep for hours! The clean verses contrast with heavier choruses (another Metallica influence??) until they break down into the passages upon passages of instrumental show-off fest. At some point there's this looney-tunes ass section with quirky cartoon sound effects that appears out of nowhere, but it's so hilarious that I wouldn't change a thing in the song.

"Honor Thy Father" is probably the darkest and most intimidating song on the record. The track is written by Portnoy and serves as a "hate song" for his step father. And it shows! The riffs sound full of anger and bitterness. I can feel some nu-metal edge in the song. Hell, it has a "rap" section, a breakdown, and the typical subject matter. I really like the movie sample that plays around the middle of the song. I always enjoyed their use of samples a whole lot, even though sometimes they can be corny...

An obvious low point of this record is a 2-minute LaBrie composition - "Vacant", which is about his little daughter's coma. It's a very emotional track with neat, delicate playing, but James' voice gets unbearable when there's so little instrumentation surrounding it. I especially don't enjoy his stupid way of doing vibrato. It sounds over-the-top and ugly. This song could've been really haunting had their hired a better singer. I know this is 100% James' song, but his voice still sounds very dull and flat despite all the emotions and heartfeltness.

After smooth transition, the instrumental epic "Stream of Consciousness" begins. It's a long journey of a song, spanning different vibes and riffs and solos upon solos upon solos. It's definitely a highlight here! It's like a proggier version of "Orion" (again by Metallica...) or more glamorous "Larks' Tongues in Aspic 2". I'm a fan of this clean intro riff that returns later in the outro and cuts off unexpectedly. By the way, the intro section contains this poppy, EDM-y synth riff that I never could put my finger on whatever it reminds me of, which is cool af in spite of sounding really out of place. Another nice memorable parts is the harmonized guitar solo at the end. It's cheesy but admittedly beautiful and pleasant to listen too. But the best part of the song?? NO JAMES. Jk, jk. But yeah, this is definitely one of my favorite instrumental tracks by DT.

A closing track is another marching track called "In The Name of God". Man, this riff's awesome! One of the coolest DT stuff for sure! Also, this is a rare song when LaBrie shines. Petrucci shuts up during the verses, giving the rhytm section carry the song with it's relentless groove and James spices it up really well with his (still somewhat powerful back then) vocals. One of the best moments of the track is when he does that crazy octave slide somewhere near the end! It's just sick and very unexpected. Overall, I like the song mainly for its strong riffs tho. It's also a nice closer for this type of album.

As I said, "Train of Thought" is my favourite by them. Again, it's mainly for the riffs and the heaviness, but overall musicianship and songwriting is still really neat if you just ignore all the wankery and obnoxious vocal vibratos. I still can't decide whether I even like this band, but I guess I don't have to like them to enjoy a listen of this record from time to time...