Jordan Rudess also leads a life away from Dream Theater. The keyboard player is a real workhorse. When he's not in the Prog Metal pioneers' class, he tinkers with his own material and records it. If necessary also parallel to his obligations with the band. Now Rudess has released his 14th studio album "Wired For Madness", with which he again enters unknown territory.
In the course of the worldwide interview marathon for their fourteenth studio album "Distance Over Time", Dream Theater will also make stops in several European capitals. Their promotion day in Berlin is meticulously clocked, John Petrucci and James LaBrie provide information every half hour until late in the evening. Thirty years after their debut with "When Dream And Day Unite" the band presents itself as a reinvigorated unit. She evokes camaraderie and creativity and reports on a new way of dealing with label managers.
eclipsed: John, please imagine the following scenario: It is 1988, Dream Theater are currently working in the Victory Studios on their debut "When Dream And Day Unite". Suddenly the DeLorean from "Back to the Future" appears, Marty McFly gets out and hands you "Distance Over Time". How would John Petrucci from 1988 have judged the album?
Most fans had the band of singer/guitarist Ty Tabor (Kingʼs X), bassist John Myung (Dream Theater) and drummer Rod Morgenstein (Dixie Dregs) probably not really on screen since their album "2" (2004). Reason: the release of the comeback album "Shall We Descent" (2011) took place in principle under exclusion of the public. "At that time we had no record contract, but we still wanted to make music together and record songs," Tabor looks back.
If there's one progmetal band that's predestined for great conceptual works, it's certainly Dream Theater. With "The Astonishing" Dream Theater have now taken on the biggest venture of their career: a two-hour rock opera, which may eventually come on stage as a musical or be filmed.
When the progmetal pioneers Dream Theater were formed almost 31 years ago, first under the name Majesty, it soon became clear that the band would provide musical highlights and delicacies in the area of tension between progressive rock and metal. On their way to becoming one of the leading progmetal institutions, Dream Theater even landed a hit in 1992 with "Pull Me Under" from the album "Images And Words". Self-ironically they titled their first compilation "Greatest Hit (...And 21 Other Really Cool Songs)" in 2008.
With the weakest opener since years the new Heep album comes up. "Speed Of Sound" is exactly the opposite of what the title promises. It really starts with the atmospheric "One Minute". Wonderful organ sounds meet a Bernie Shaw in top form. Finally the sympathetic singer can put himself in the limelight.
