Being released on June 23rd, Dream Theater's latest achievement "Black Clouds & Silver Linings" is a force not to be reckoned with.
To us diehard Dream Theater fans, this is definitely an album you cannot pass up. With 6 original new songs and 6 cover songs from the likes of Queen, Dixie Dreggs, King Crimson, and Iron Maiden - is there any more you need? The guys in the band thought there just had to be something more!
The 3 CD Deluxe Edition which is now available for pre-order comes with not only the first two CDs, but all six original songs in their instrumental versions. This is perfect for the fans who love to learn the music or if someone would like to sing along to it without James' voice(like me.(;)! This is a deal you absolutely cannot pass up! Order it now. Like, NOW now.
The album opens up with A Nightmare to Remember, a very dark and gothic sounding song about a fatal car crash incident. It is complete with sirens wailing and even a car crashing sound. There is an epic choir and Rudess shows of his amazing keyboarding skills with an eerie church organ sound. It leads to a very heavy guitar riff and LaBrie enters.
The song is very dark in itself with everything a Dream Theater song needs. With a concise length of 16:20, there is alot to offer. Excellent guitar solos are thrown in by Petrucci, and Myung adds a layer of darkness to the sound with his bass.
One of my favorite things is the drumming by Mike Portnoy. A little bit of growling and chanting kinda takes away from the sheer epicness of the song, but it's made up easily by the absolutely wonderful music proceeding right after!
A Rite of Passage, their first single off this album is a quite a deep song if you listen closely to the lyrics. The song-writing is once again mind-blowing and has a interesting vibe to it with the keyboards and crowds in the background, complete with the little speech included from time to time during verses. The melodies that LaBrie sings are absolutely amazing, but when isn't his singing incredible? The guitar riffs sound like they may be boring to play during an 8 minute song, but it definitely isn't boring to listen to! This song definitely will be a fan-favorite, doubtless. The video to accompany it can be found on youtube. There is an INCREDIBLE solo by Petrucci around 5:25 and shows off his skills. Yeah, he's got the talent. But we all knew that already.(;
This leads to the ballad-like song Wither, the second of my personal favorites on this album. The whole song is beautiful in itself, with some heart-wrenching lyrics to match. You can clearly understand what LaBrie is singing about with the lines, "So I wither and render myself helpless. I give in and everything is clear. I breakdown and let the story guide me." It's a very emotional song and adds a touch of sadness to the album, which is easily balanced out by the next song.
The next song is the last of Mike Portnoy's 12 Step-Suite process he went through. This is The Shattered Fortress. It is easily one of the more heavier songs on the album. This song is bouts of awesomeness! This is my most favorite song on the album for obvious reasons when you hear it. The guitar sounds freaking BA and is just...perfect? Yes, I believe this whole song is.
I think the coolest part of this song that really caught me on is the brief sections they put in from The Root of All Evil towards the end of the song. Portnoy puts his last three steps in this song and portrays it really well through the heavy music and insane drum-playing. The cymbals are really neat and the bass drum is exquisitely done. This song in itself will definitely be one of the more fan-recognized ones by Dream Theater's crazy fans.
The following piece is a very, very emotional one for Portnoy dealing with his father's battle with cancer, and his death after. It begins with a beautiful piano and violin intro, and you can tell each man in this band poured his heart out into the song, for it is definitely heart-wrenching. The guitar adds to the dark and mesmerizing atmosphere of the song. But it gets a little heavier further in to the song and has a note of hope in it when LaBrie begins to sing. This is an enchanting song about Father and Son, and many will love it. When you listen to the lyrics, it makes you feel great waves of sympathy toward Portnoy and his loss. This is an absolutely powerful song once you learn about Portnoy's ordeal he had to experience. Anyone who has lost a father-figure will definitely love this song.
The album is concluded with an interesting piece called The Count of Tuscany. It begins soft but leads to a darker and more space-like-vibe with the keyboard. Nearly a full 20 minute song, this piece has much to offer. While the song goes in about fifteen different directions, it's all very neatly put together and you will appreciate the musical genius of these 5 talented men. The transitions come one after another like a speeding bullet and make for a truly epic song. Of course, the song is about none other than The Count of Tuscany which they speak about through the whole thing, adding darkness to it with the lines "I don't wanna die. Suddenly I'm frightened for my life. I wanna say goodbye, this could be the last time you see me alive."
A masterpiece and there will definitely be lots of talk about how great this song is. It is a song you cannot surpass at all - it's just too great on so many levels with the complex timing and frequent transitions.
The cover songs come right after, which are all done superbly. I'll leave your opinions to yourself on how well they managed to do these songs(flawless, in my opinion. I hope you feel the same after giving them a full listen).
This album is nearly perfect in every aspect. There is not a single thing a Dream Theater fan wouldn't like(unless, of course, they are HUGE critics. But geez, lay off. This is musical genius we're talking about).
That concludes my epic review of this wonderful CD. Dream Theater - forever.
With love, Victoria
Hey everyone. About to be off for grandma's house, but I wanted to show you where all the magic happens.(;
Well, my keyboard is a very standard 76-key Yamaha. There's nothing real fancy about it, and the keys are normal to hit so you can't really go forte or crescendo on anything unless you have your finger repeatedly mashing the + button for the volume. Which just makes the volume go up in steps and sounds like the worst sort of crescendo in the world.
Here's some pictures to give you an idea of what it looks like. My good friend Jared has the same one, apparently.(:
If you pay attention, you can see a mini-version of Hogwarts castle sitting atop the top left corner of the desk. When I was a Harry Potter fanatic, I got that for Christmas one year. Very interesting toy.
The weather here has been very glum and is just terrible for the start of summer. I think it's a sign that this isn't going to be a very fun summer vacation. There's been lots of rain and too many clouds. The sun made an appearance a few times yesterday during the crazy rainfall, but apart from that it's been grey all around. But there have been very pretty flowers growing in the greenbelt, so I'll have to snap a few pictures of that for you all.(;
With love, Victoria
Here's a charming Anette picture off Nightwish's live gallery.(;
Another Epica post(and some extra treats at the end!). I've gotten back into Nightwish(for like...the 347238563 time...), and have been enjoying listening to End of An Era and Dark Passion Play. It's so different listening to Tarja and Netty. But, that conversation is and has been over since DPP was released.
With other news, I discovered that the title for Epica's new(and fifth!) studio album has been titled "Design Your Universe".
When I first heard this title, I really didn't believe it. I thought, "That's really different. It doesn't sound right." and I had my doubts.
But after looking at Epica's homepage and about the release party, I looked it up on Wiki and it has indeed been confirmed. Visit: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Your_Universe" for more information.
And to promote two other things...
I recently found out that Anette Olzon has both a website AND a blog! Talk about double dose of awesome. What's more: Anette uses this same website for her blog! xD I feel so special...We're not so different after all...
Ready for a triple threat? How about Simone Simon's offical website? I no, rite?
Links:
Anette Olzon Official Website(language choices limited to Svenska or English) - http://www.anette-olzon.com/
Anette Olzon Official Blog(can be found on website as well but if you're lazy like me) - http://anette-olzon.blogspot.com/
Simone Simons Offical Website - http://simonesimons.nl/
See you around soon!(:
With love, Victoria ♥
As many of you know, Epica has released their much anticipated new live album The Classical Conspiracy. I was absolutely thrilled to hear of this show, and was really hoping they would film it. When I heard it wasn't being recorded, it made me really sad. Liek sooper sad lawlz.);
But then I heard it was being released on a two-disc CD album? Get out of town!! That made my day. And us frantic Epica fans were just waiting for May 8th.
When I got this CD, I was very much excited. Epica, Epica, Epica, Epica - PLAY!
With The Classical Conspiracy. I was very much impressed. Palladium, the opening song, is done excellently. Choir sounds great, orchestra sounds even better. Dies Irea is one of my personal favorites; Epica does it's best on bombastic and crazy songs like this, in my opinion.
As for the other classical pieces like Stabat Mater Dolorosa, In The Hall of the Mountain King, and Montagues and Capulets, those are very well done. The medleys from Spiderman and Pirates of the Caribbean are also among my top-favorites on this one. The Imperial March sounds FANTASTIC! I wish they could perform it at every concert. I don't think you can ever get bored. Epica does the best job at transforming such beautiful and rekowned pieces into something even more than they could be. Mozart never dreamt of heavy-metal versions of his songs, now did he? I bet he would be proud though. Well...perhaps.
Moving on to the more fan-recognized Epica songs, we start out the second disk with Indigo. It is so graceful, and is everything you could imagine it to be. The fans start it off with a bit of chanting the band's name, and I think that was awesome. It adds to the experience of listening to the album. This song never fails to send chills down my spine each time I listen to it. My only problem is the choir at the beginning with the "Queastio nostra est". They sound a tad bit young, and take away from the beauty of the orchestra. But that is later changed when we reach the climax of the song, and the sopranos reach that high note which just makes everything ten times better. After Indigo you expect them to play The Obsessive Devotion like with The Divine Conspiracy. But no!
They lead right into The Last Crusade. And it works PERFECTLY! But I'm not surprised, even though it is a little unexpected.
Epica continues the concert with their high-energy songs like Sensorium, Quietus, Never Enough, and Beyond Belief. They manage to maintain all their enthusiasm thoughout all the songs. My personal favorites are Chasing the Dragon, Cry for the Moon, and Safeguard to Paradise.
With Chasing the Dragon, Simone does some low singing which is really neat and adds to the darkness of the song when it nearly reaches it's climax with "The dragon is wreaking havoc in my brain" and Mark growls after her on those parts. Let's give big kudos to Mark, he always sounds amazing.
The most significant song in the Epica set, is Living a Lie. The lyrics are changed so that Simone and the choir are singing nearly the whole time. And it works out really well. It's unbelievable what this band can accomplish. I only wish Mark could've memorized the parts where he growls, because I always have loved his grunts. Call me a fangirl(I am), I love him!!(:
What I especially like about this concert is that you can clearly hear the keyboards! Normally when listening to concerts, the keyboards are barely heard. But Coen lets himself be heard! I really appreciate that, seeing as keyboards are very important to alot of the Epica songs.
One of the things I dislike the most is the interaction between the band and the audience. You get tired of hearing Simone's frequent "Are you guys having a good time?" shouts. But her beautiful singing makes up for it.
Mark adds to her shouts by his "Hey!"'s during the appropriate times of the middle of the songs.
All in all, it's an experience that makes you feel as if you were there. The whole set list is great, and there's barely a complaint I have about this album.
I strongly suggest all fans of classical or metal music to pick up this album and give it a listen. Whether you're an Epica fan or not, this is a treat for all ears.
Stay tuned for more reviews!
Victoria
Okay, for real. Long time, no see! Amazing how you can forget about something like this...xD
With summer quickly approaching and school ending(thank God), everyone knows what this means...
More covers!!
Yessss...start those praises. I know...I know...
Songs I plan to cover are Sleeping Sun, Wish I Had an Angel, The Voice, Quietus, You Raise Me Up, and Amaranth(operatic version).
I'm hoping the Amaranth version will give you a obscure glimpse of what it may have sounded like if Tarja were still in Nightwish. I will try my best not to completely ruin the song!
Recording new material also calls for new recording devices.
With my desktop headset, it really doesn't have great sound quality. So I'm throwing that idea down the drain.
My microphone cable broke recently, which calls for a new one. I'm hoping this will arrive soon.
Perhaps Audacity is in order...?
And for last words, I suggest everyone look up Korpiklaani's new single "Vodka"!!
Amusing lyrics, amazing music.
Please bear with me as I get things in order and deliver you more covers!
With love,
Victoria
Ps;; I'm working on my first song(which is VERY VERY standard and easy to play on the keyboard...lol freakishly easy chords), and may record it as well!!(:
Being released on June 23rd, Dream Theater's latest achievement "Black Clouds & Silver Linings" is a force not to be reckoned with.
The first picture is a very conveniently placed stack of GI magazines...
