“Awake” is an album with darker themes and heavier music throughout, than the band’s first two albums, though not to the point that they lose their identity. On “6:00”, James LaBrie opens the album and comes in hard and positive with his vocals from the outset, setting the album off on a great note, with John Petrucci’s crawling guitar riff and Kevin Moore’s seamless keyboards linking everything throughout. “Caught in a Web” carries on with the heavier tones, dominated by LaBrie’s awesome vocal track and Petrucci’s heavy riff, with positive lyrics about deciding to live life the way you want to, and not feel as though you are trapped in the titled web. “Innocence Faded” follows and draws on similar themes from the opening track. “6.00” has lyrics written by Moore, while “Innocence Faded” is written by Petrucci, and those themes, of a relationship beginning to deteriorate from two different perspectives, is closer to home than anyone knew at the time. Lines such as “Beginnings get complicated the farther we progress, opinions are complicated, immune to openness” speak for themselves.
“A Mind Beside Itself” is the trilogy suite that follows this, beginning with the instrumental “Erotomania”, something that gives the band the chance to operate without the vocals. This moves into “Voices” and “The Silent Man” and is a quieter and softer trio of tracks than what has come before it. “The Silent Man” sits in the acoustic range with LaBrie’s vocals suitably muted for the track.
“The Mirror” combines Moore’s sensational keyboard pieces that hold the song together, along with Petrucci’s grunging guitar riffs and John Myung’s bottom end bass guitar bringing a whole new depth to the musical side of the track. Lyrically it references Mike Portnoy’s battle with alcohol, something he would utilise again in several songs through the years. “Lie” opens with a great Petrucci riff and is a great example of the heavier direction this album took in many places. LaBrie’s vocals perfectly position themselves between the low almost growl of the opening lines before he rises to the heights again with a heavier emphasis on his singing. It’s interesting that the main riff was originally a part of the previous song “The Mirror”, but it was LaBrie who insisted that the riff deserved a place of its own. Great song, with a great solo from Petrucci through the middle of the track.
“Lifting Shadows Off a Dream” builds throughout from a slower quieter beginning to a soaring of LaBrie’s vocals into the back half of the song and the dominant sound of Moore’s keyboards and Myung’s bass. “Scarred” is the longest track on the album at eleven minutes, incorporating each of the members performance to ebb and flow throughout. The album closes out with “Space-Dye Vest” and is solely composed by Moore, something which caused a conundrum for the band when, just after the release of the album, Moore quit Dream Theater. Because the band considered this to be a 100% Kevin Moore song, they didn’t feel it was right to play the song live without him. In fact, Portnoy was quoted as saying that if they had known Moore was going to leave the band, they would not have put the song on the album. It was not until 2014 that the band performed the song live. Containing samples from certain movies and TV shows, and with music heavily based around Moore keyboards, it does feel more like a Moore solo composition than a Dream Theater song, though LaBrie and future keyboardist Jordan Rudess were very keen on getting the song into their live setlists.
I didn’t come across Dream Theater in any way shape or form until almost the turn of the new century, with the return of my heavy metal music dealer, who had come across this band in his travels, and started very forcibly pushing them onto myself and our friends by saying “You have to listen to this band they are AWESOME!!” And so we, and I, did. And as it turned out I got copies of quite a few of their albums at the same time, and was listening to them all in assorted orders, so it was quite a bit to get used to. And as it turns out, it was “Awake” that I finally settled on to listen to on a regular basis, to come to terms and get a grip on the music that Dream Theater was producing.
Now unlike others, Dream Theater for me was an acquired taste. It didn’t always gel with me and my music tastes. I would discover songs that I loved, but other stretches where I found I wasn't so much a fan of. The song that first caught my attention was “Caught in a Web”, perhaps because it wasn’t quite so progressive as their other work that I knew at the time. It was a song where I began to appreciate each different aspect of the band – guitar, bass, drums, keys, vocals. And having found a way in, it enabled me to get a grip on the music and the band, and from there I was able to enjoy what they produced. And as it turned out, “Awake” was a heavier and more focused album than “When Dream and Day Unite” and “Images and Words” and “Falling into Infinity”, which had been those other albums that I had initially listened to. So by concentrating on just this album for awhile, I found my niche into the Dream Theater sound, and it set me on my way.
Is there a conflict within my enjoyment and love of Dream Theater? Yes, there is. And “Awake” certainly holds true to that. I like most of my music is that faster tempo, and heavier too if possible. Not all of this album is like that, which means that when I put the album on to listen to while I’m doing something else in the background it is enjoyable, but if I have it on, say, in the car, then the skip button will occasionally get utilised. It’s just the way of things. But the songs that I like, such as those played here on this episode and a few others, I REALLY like. And that is what drives my enjoyment of this album.
While this was the first album that I really listened to of Dream Theater, there are many other albums down the track that caught my attention harder, mostly when they allowed the heavier side of their music to shine through. No real surprise in that, I guess. But this album still shines in those same old places, with the genius of the players well and truly front and centre in the mix.
And while the musicians themselves are generally the high water talking point of this band when it comes to musical discussion, the star for me on this album has always been James Labrie and his vocals. I think they are amazing here, and he makes the songs what they are.
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