In one of those curious phases you sometimes go through with bands you have just discovered, I sought out the solo works of the members of Dream Theater to see what they did when they weren’t on the job. Notably, it wasn’t as if I was expecting to seriously fall in love with this work from their keyboardist. Actually I was expecting elevator music.
In the long run, it didn’t turn out to be that way at all. There is no mistaking the quality of his musicianship, or of those who help him out on other instruments for this project. The tracks themselves are very eclectic and obviously synth-driven. In places it sounds like some of the stuff that my four year old daughter plays on her little electric keyboard when she’s trying to perform one of her ‘symphonies’.
This, therefore, is a fan’s album. To be perfectly honest, you would have to be a frustrated keyboardist or a techno-head to be able to sit down and listen to this over and over again, and get anything of any real value out of it. I like my music to be song-orientated and driven, not just have long-winded keyboard solo-breaks, which is what most of it sounds like.
Rating: One for the musicians I believe. While it is musically very clever, it’s not my thing. 1/5.
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