One step forward, two steps back, in the latest chapter of the Dream Theater saga as ‘MP’ resumes his rightful place on the drum stool.

Release Date: 7th February 2025

Label: Inside Out Music / Sony Music

Format: CD / digital / LP / deluxe box set / deluxe CD artbook

PARASOMINA?

Disruptive, sleep-related disturbances including sleepwalking, sleep paralysis, and night terrors. And the music for. The album that sees the recording return of drummer and DT icon Mike Portnoy. The MP factor is always going to be a significant factor, looming ominously in the shadows even when he wasn’t in the band.

In hindsight, the Mangini years now seem a mere interlude where the excellent Mike M, chosen via the soap opera selection process, kept the drum stool warm. The band delivered on the album and tour front with varying degrees of success. From the divisive to the extreme of The Astonishing to the traditional ‘spot the difference’ Prog Metal chops of A Dramatic Turn Of Events. What grumpy Rog would call ‘a clever forgery’.

IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME

However, we’re heading through the wibbly wobbly lines, back to the early twenty tens. Does Parasomnia seem to essentially pick up from 2009’s Black Clouds & Silver Linings left off? Even to the extent of the darkly monochrome-ish album art. Feels like the intervening years were all a dream and MP was in the shower all along.

Abounding with Dream Theater qualities/signatures/trademarks, the fabulous five deliver seventy minutes of headlong blather (and a lot of notes) that tick the familiar boxes. All delivered with the suggestion that we have a set here that is meant to flow in the same fashion as their magnum opus, Scenes From A Memory. Always useful to draw on comparisons to your best work to set an expectation. Even though nothing could really match SFAM, the seed has been sown.

AND SO…

Does the album live up to the hype and the sighs of relief that MP is back and all is ok? The ominous opening (remember the Psycho intro music at the gigs?) to In The Arms Of Morpheus is enough of a scene setter. References to musical themes, an overture of sort, see Portnoy almost soloing through the bucking riff, before the seatbelts are secured and here we go. The bass/drums/guitar lock into a filthy riff primed for heads to band and fists to pump.

The instrumental overture will give John Petrucci plenty of opportunity to practice his ‘pick arm aloft’ pose before the stop-start riff of first single Night Terror. The accelerator firmly to the metal as vocalist James LaBrie makes his entrance. Allowing for the love/hate relationship that some fans (and some of the band) have/had with James, he’s given chance to ease in. Possibly bearing in mind this sequence could well be a concert opener when the album is toured. Not too dissimilar to the vibes of A Rite Of Passage, The Alien, On The Backs Of Angels album openings.

A Broken Man sees a bout of furious ensemble playing that steps back once more to allow the vocal part to ease in. The expectations – the Metal, the Prog, the ballad, frequent dazzling flashes of Petrucci guitar mastery – are starting to be met.

DOWNTUNED, DOMINANT AND DIRTY

Dead Asleep, Midnight Messiah (check the rapid Deep Purple-y patches vying withthe heftier Train Of Thought-y riffage) and Bend The Clock all contribute to the broad theme. Some passages of music or lyric being dark and frenzied enough to suggest more in the line of nightmares. A regular diet of detuned, dominant and dirty Petrucci riffs and what seems like a greater space for Jordan Rudess’ keyboard contributions, fuel the intense DT thrill ride that comes as standard

Amidst the bluff and bluster, Jordan Rudess nips in for a keyboard texture or passage. He’s often found switching between quirky music hall, silent movie chase stylings, flying synth and reedy organ in A Broken Man. He’s almost Wakeman-esque in the shifts between contrasting styles that start back on A Broken Man. The lighter moments in the sway and roll of early contender for album highlight, Bend The Clock hint at the light waving opportunities. It closes out with a Petrucci guitar break that you can file alongside The Spirit Carries On as one that’s about feel rather than speed (although he just can’t just rein himself in as the track fades).

PROGTASTIC FINALE

The prog chops are on full display in twenty minutes of The Shadow Man Incident. There’s even a hint of the ‘Scenes’ overture and not dissimilar in structure to The Count Of Tuscany. From the false dawn of the set up, a mid track rapid instrumental sequence with stabs of organ again from Jordan contribute to a juddering and technically mind boggling million notes per minute part. The bag of tricks is emptied, the ears are bleeding and the brain is fried.

“A musical journey that has become synonymous with the band since the beginning of their career,” says the PR guff. Parasomnia holds no real surprises. A thorough battering that Dream Theater have been dishing out to Metalheads everywhere over four decades.

Here’s A Broken Man:

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