DREAM THEATER
A DRAMATIC TURN OF EVENTS

By Dave Carruthers

When the news broke of Mike Portnoy leaving Dream Theater to me it kind of felt like Dream Theater had broke. Not only was Portnoys musical input to the band enormous but also his personality and interaction with the fans. Dream Theater being the band they are with the cult following they have could have been really hurt by the loss of Portnoy both musically and interactively and although interactively I don't think they have picked up from where Mike left musically I can't say they have put out a bad album here.

"A Dramatic Turn Of Events" is Very different sounding from their other albums, but also has some
similarities - but then again with a prog metal band, it's hard to say any two albums are alike so it's hard to really compare this album to any of their earlier work... except for "Images and Words". There was an
article going around after the release of the album that insinuated that Dream Theater had actually rewritten "Images and Words" song for song and created a brand new album using the musical structures of all of the songs on that album. Take what you will, the article was pretty convincing and the guy who wrote it made a lot of sense but really the album is very different.

'Build Me Up, Break Me Down', is probably my favorite track at the moment, and interestingly starts off sounding very electro and almost like a Korn song, but maybe that's just the name of the song making me think that... I don't know? With Portnoy gone but an incredible drummer in Mike Mangini taking the seat you would expect to hear some difference in the music, there is some difference but at the end of the day Mangini was and is a huge Dream Theater / Portnoy fan and the album is none the less a classic Dream Theater album. I really love Jordan's work in this album, he really is a wizard on the keys and this album confirms to me he is one of the best there is.