Black Clouds and Silver Linings

Album of the Day: the 3 disc special edition of Dream Theater's brand new album, just released today -- "Black Clouds and Silver Linings."

I realize that some people might read this blog and think "Whaa...?" when I mention Dream Theater. I could go on and on with my superlatives, but if you aren't familiar with the real-world level of my music obsession, you won't be able to fully appreciate how much I love this band. They are not terribly accessible; you won't hear them on the radio or read about them in Rolling Stone or see them as a part of the Summer Concert Series on the Today show or see their video on MTV. Of course, you haven't seen a video on MTV since about 1994, but that's beside the point.

I'll cut to the chase here. This special edition includes a disc of cover versions of songs by bands that Dream Theater would cite as some of their biggest influences. One of these bands was Queen. I'm assuming we've all heard of Queen.... the guitarist for Queen, Brian May, recently became a Dream Theater fan when he heard the cover version of "Tenement Funster / Flick of the Wrist / Lily of the Valley" that was included on the bonus cover disc. The band invited him to see them play at some huge rock festival in England. This next section is quoted from Brian May's blog, sharing his impressions of the show:

"But I was also, by one of those strange alignments of the planets, able to see the band who have just delivered what my mate Rog called (totally unprompted last week) "The best Queen cover job ever". Yes, the redoubtable Dream Theatre. IT was a revelation. Their scope is way beyond covering Ancient Rock Bands, of course ... and actually way beyond Rock, I'd say. They are what would have been called, about 30 years ago - truly 'progressive, with more than a touch of fusion'. But their musicianship is way beyond even that. The whole band are virtuosos ... I'm kind of ashamed I never discovered them before. Their set was completely without any hint of 'playing to the Gallery'. They took their time mapping out their songs, which I can only say succulently drip with the best kind of complexity. Wonderful playing. I will be back for more. So will about 80,000 Classic Rock fans who gave them a great reception in the old "Monsters of Rock" fields - what we all used to know as the Donnington Castle gig."

I'd say that covers it.

The new album is astounding. Only six songs long, but the whole album length is more than 75 minutes with one song close to 20 minutes long and one a little over 16 minutes. I won't drift into a review here or try to convince anyone how great it is or how great they are -- you either know it or you don't. But I will say anyone feeling musically adventurous should fire up iTunes and play a few samples to see what you're missing.