When Dream Theater introduced their new report, Parasomnia, followers hoped that one thing particular would come. What they won’t have anticipated was simply how heavy the album would turn into compared to the band’s newest efforts.
In a latest dialog with Dylan Gowan of Banger TV, Portnoy talked about such a renewed depth, and the way the band leaned into their heaviest impulses.
“Yeah, I believe generally folks overlook the significance of the metallic aspect to Dream Theater, particularly with me within the band,” Portnoy stated (by way of Blabbermouth). “It’s a extremely vital side. It all the time has been. When you take a look at the very, very first track from the very first album, in ‘A Fortune In Lies’, I used to be taking part in thrash, double bass, thrash beats proper outta the gate.”
That metallic spine has all the time been a part of their DNA, in line with Portnoy, even because the band constructed its status on progressive complexity. “And we’ve all the time had songs like that, whether or not or not it’s ‘The Glass Jail’ or ‘Panic Assault’ or ‘A Nightmare To Keep in mind’. It’s been an enormous a part of the band’s sound, and, to be sincere, I believe it’s an enormous a part of the band’s success.”
Portnoy pointed to the band’s capability to faucet into each the progressive and metallic crowds as a key purpose for his or her attain and longevity. “There’s lots of prog bands or prog metallic bands which are nonetheless sort of underground and nonetheless play smaller reveals or perhaps don’t promote as many information as a result of perhaps they haven’t tapped into the metallic aspect.”
“However the truth that the metallic aspect is such an enormous, large a part of our sound, I believe, is what elevates Dream Theater to be the cream of the crop when it comes to ticket gross sales and report gross sales within the prog universe,” he continued. “I believe it’s that metallic aspect that does it. The truth that we might play these large metallic festivals like Aftershock or Louder Than Life or Hellfest or Graspop, the truth that we might pull off gigs like that as a prog metallic band speaks lots for that metallic aspect.”
Regardless of its heavy tone, Parasomnia wasn’t designed to sound that method — it merely advanced in that path. “And when writing Parasomnia, we simply naturally fell into it,” Portnoy defined. “Perhaps it was the darkish material of sleep issues and nightmares and issues like that, perhaps that helped us gravitate in direction of it.”
For followers questioning how this new materials stacks up in opposition to the band’s earlier work, Portnoy provided a transparent comparability: “If I needed to describe Parasomnia, the album, to someone, I’d say it sort of has the darkness and heaviness of Practice Of Thought with the cinematic method of Scenes From A Reminiscence.”
Enter your data beneath to get a every day replace with all of our headlines and obtain The Orchard Steel publication.
