Metropolis Part 2

Following my "discovery" of Dream Theater when I bought Black Clouds & Silver Linings, I started trawling through their back catalogue and bought Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From A Memory, a reference to the masterpiece track from their Images And Words album. Apparently DT were given full creative control for this, their fifth studio album. It is a concept album that deals with the story of a man named Nicholas and the discovery of his past life through hypnotic regression, involving love, murder, and infidelity as Victoria Page. As a story, it makes fascinating reading, a real tale with a savage twist to it that stretches from the present day back to 1928. Musically it is structured as two Acts comprising nine Scenes split over twelve tracks. The final tracks ends with static from a record player and marks the beginning of what people have called a meta-album where the last note or noise of one album is the same or similar to the beginning of the next. The Dream Theater meta-album spans four albums, from Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory to Octavarium. Octavarium ends the meta-album by having the same piano note at the beginning and end of the same album. Concept albums, by their nature, are more about the story than the music, but once I knew the story the music just me along in a very natural way. The music is, of course, stunningly superb, but it never overwhelms, and the whole thing is beautifully constructed and executed.

10/10