Review

Band: Dream Theater

Album: Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Reviewer: Nick Andreas and Kevin Martell, Edited by Jeremy Hefner

Nick's Review:

Dream Theater’s Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence would be an important mark in the band’s history for a variety of reasons. It was their first double album, so questions would be raised on whether or not that was justified. It was a follow up to Scenes From a Memory, the first album featuring Jordan Rudess and considered by many fans to be the band’s finest work, and finally, Six Degrees would feature Dream Theater’s longest song to date, the forty-two minute title track.

The album opens with the heaviest, most aggressive track Dream Theater has ever attempted, and the risk in such a song certainly paid off. “The Glass Prison” is easily Dream Theater’s best opening cut to date, its constant energy keeping the listener in a tight grasp throughout its fourteen minute duration. The track features beautifully worked recurring musical themes, an instrumental intro that will have anyone’s blood boiling, memorable riffing, and some of the best vocal trade-offs Portnoy and LaBrie have ever managed. The next track, “Blind Faith” better represents the overall sound of the album. Heavy at times, however the primary focus being on experimentation, and softer more uplifting musical patterns. “Blind Faith”, as well as pretty much everything on the album after it, contain a lot of moments of subtle beauty that can often be lacking from other Dream Theater material. Especially haunting is the piano solo that is the center of the song, and the pickup after the solo that to the unfocused mind can be confused with a choir of angels who have descended from heaven simply to sing to you. “Misunderstood” perfectly nails the experimental nature of the album, succeeding in both its softer and heavier halves; however this triumph is often overshadowed by the overly long outro.

“The Great Debate” is a gem on the first disc that is often overlooked by fans. An epic in many respects, the track builds in a fashion that can often be underrated. The song goes from a sample driven intro, to parts that feature the new sound of the album, and others that give a more traditionally driven Dream Theater sound. Well written from beginning to end the song keeps you interested in an odd way in which most other Dream Theater songs of similar length rarely do. Only Trial of Tears really manages as many subtle hooks throughout such a long duration. Finally we end disc one with “Disappear”. The song features the best lyrics James LaBrie has ever written, and the best lyrics on the album. They lend themselves to the music well in creating an aura of beauty throughout the piece. However for the first two thirds of the song the music simply is not that impressive. Near the end however, the song shows a saving grace. The final third of the song prior to the outro is the most hauntingly beautiful piece of music since the oft disputed Space-Dye Vest. The guitar added in the end section takes the music to an entirely new level, the lyrics climax bringing the song to an amazing close. Then another unnecessary outro once again detracts from what had just happened.

All of this seems to lead into the grand piece of the album, the self titled, forty-four minute long epic “Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence”. The track’s beginning certainly lends itself heavily to the experimentation of the album, relying Jordan Rudess to recreate an orchestra by recording multiple tracks with his keyboard. This creates something new for Dream Theater, something that standing alone may be seen as simply amusing or different, but as part of the whole is brilliant. One later realizes many of the musical styling of the overture in the rest of the song, and “Overture” flows into “About to Crash” as well as all the songs flow together. The flow is perhaps the greatest strength of the song, the transitions can be both abrupt yet natural, and never once in forty-four minutes do you feel bored, nor do you think things are getting repetitive. The song delivers everything, softer moments, heavier moments, soulful instrumental passages, shredding, and the kitchen sink. The chorus’s to the movements “War Inside My Head”, and “The Test That Stumped Them All” manage to catch both with the music than with the vocals. The intro to “Solitary Shell” remains one of the simplest yet beautiful introductions Dream Theater have ever done. And the song ends on an emotional note that is tough to match, forty-four minutes coming to an end in an incredible release of one breath from James’s mouth.

The production of the album can best be summed up as meeting Dream Theater’s standards. Ever since Images and Words the band has failed to produce a bad sounding album and this is not exception. Although the music may be a tad subdued compared to other albums, everyone is still there. Petrucci delivers amazing solos, Portnoy lays complex patters, LaBrie powers much of the music forward with his voice, Rudess takes care of the atmosphere, and Myung sits as the backbone for it all to center on. Together this formula created an album that was, and still is the most exploratory in Dream Theater’s catalog. It is the album that finds them going, “What haven’t we tried before? Let’s give that a shot!” And the boys pull off this challenge with ease, creating a first disc that features five tracks that range from very strong moments to fantastic, and a second disc which manages to encompass a forty-four minute track that is fully deserving of its length.

TheOutlawXanadu's Review:

As good as Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence is, it is a frustrating album because it signaled the start of a trend in Dream Theater’s music that has remained popular to this day. With the success of songs like “The Glass Prison” and “Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence”, two tracks that pushed the boundaries of their respective genres to the fringe, the band was given the false impression that being bombast and epic all of the time was a good idea. It is for this reason that the record’s greatest strength - its disregard for conventional, subtle (DT) songwriting - is also its greatest weakness.

The songs “Disappear” and “Misunderstood” are two prime supporters of my argument. The former is phenomenal at times, in particular its heart-wrenching chorus, but it’s hindered by sound effects and herky-jerky vocals in abundance. The latter is half great, half boring. The final three minutes of the song stray so far from where they were going in the first place that they become less bearable than nails against a chalkboard. Heck, they sound just like nails against a chalkboard.

“The Great Debate”, unlike the aforementioned two compositions, is devoid of any redeeming qualities (except for perhaps its instrumental section). It starts off with samples, and then it tries out some annoying vocals that are over-ridden with effects, and to finish up, it revisits more samples. Oh, and did I mention that the work as a whole clocks in at just under 14 minutes? It’s an insufferable bore, one that’s placement near the end of the first disc of the record doesn’t help matters.

I cannot stress just how close Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence came to failing. Its two discs comprise what has to be the ballsiest hour-and-a-half of music in the Dream Theater catalog, music that comes close to being too ballsy for its own good. However, because of this recklessness on the part of the band, the album finds a way to work, and demands respect. In particular, there are three songs that not only save the record, but define the most remarkable aspects of Dream Theater’s new millennium sound.

The openers “The Glass Prison” and “Blind Faith” are two of the most interesting pieces of weaponry in the band’s arsenal, and have served as blueprints for many of their more recent outputs. For example, “The Glass Prison”, with its relentless, thrashing nature, was an obvious influence on Train of Thought. As a matter of fact, it could be argued that that entire album metamorphosed from “The Glass Prison” and the fun the band had playing it live. “Blind Faith” also, with its big jam section and ever-changing tones, is structured a little bit like “Endless Sacrifice” and “The Ministry of Lost Souls”.

Where the SDOIT songs go right and their imitators go wrong is in the utilization of Jordan Rudess. Throughout the record’s running length he churns out stunning melody after stunning melody, his soloing still a little shreddy for my taste but undoubtedly memorable. In particular, his piano work on “Blind Faith” might be his signature moment with the band, a rambling of notes that is as elegant as anything I’ve ever heard inside of the progressive metal genre (although, that might not be saying much).

Rudess’s most famous contribution to the album is it’s title track, which he wrote a substantial portion of, and spans an overwhelming 42 minutes. The song is not perfect - its length makes it a chore to get through and some of it’s movements feel out-of-place, in particular “Goodnight Kiss” and “Solitary Shell” - but it’s solid enough to resonate with you. In particular, “Overture”, “About to Crash” and “About to Crash (Reprise)” are great, their free-flowing essence shining through every note, and “The Test That Stumped Them All” and “War Inside My Head” kick all kinds of ass. “Grand Finale”, the final movement of the epic, is excellent as well, although the long fade-out at the end always annoys me.

It has been well publicized that, had Scenes from a Memory failed, Dream Theater would’ve broken up. Thankfully, they didn’t, and the result of their success with Scenes was their best JR-era effort to date. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence is a wonderfully mysterious album, one that rewards the listener after each successive listen and consistently reveals new elements of its craft. Still, I cannot stress enough just how close the record comes on numerous occasions to jumping the shark; reaching a point of ridiculousness that is so far-fetched one wonders whether or not Dream Theater has become a parody of themselves.

However, in almost going too far, the band succeeds tremendously, showcasing a willingness to take chances and no concern over cosmopolitan perception of what they should be. It is because of this that Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence divided the DT fanbase upon its release, but has since become one of the group’s most heralded works. The risks that they took in composing it, I think, were clearly worth it, and would be welcome in the future.

Nick's Rating: 90%
TOX's Rating: 70%