Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos (2007)

If you have to believe the metal heads that have done a review of this album in Metal archives, "Systematic Chaos" is the worst of the albums in the bands entire discography with a average rating of 72% (best album in the same site is "Awake" that has the rating 93%). That statistics is nothing that really surprise me since "Systematic Chaos" is more "modern" metal than progressive or heavy and the commercialism over the album is about as high as it was on "Falling Into Infinity". A couple of proofs of the increased commercial approach on this record is that this was the first album from Dream Theater released by Roadrunner Records (a band that in present days have contracts with Nickelback, Stone Sour and Avenged Sevenfold) and the band made its first music video in over ten years (the video was for an edited version of "Constant Motion"). But I am not going to talk more on how others thought of "Systematic Chaos", this is what I thought about this album.

Starting off "Systematic Chaos" is the first part of the song "In The Presence of Enemies", a piece that in its entirety is 25 minutes long but is split into two songs with the lengths 9 and 16 minutes. The total song is a progressive masterpiece with heavy, fast, slow and melodic parts in each and every corner. It is an exciting song that has a easy to follow flow and has a ability to get a good grip at the listener. Even though this is as close to a perfect song as you can get I still feel that Dream Theater should not have made it into two parts and definitely not put the parts as the first and last song on "Systematic Chaos".

After the first part of the second longest song ever created by the band we have "Forsaken". This is probably the most commercially appealing song the band has made in over a decade and it is no wonder that this song was released as a single (even though it was not the first single from this album). If it was not for the beautiful musicality I would probably just shrug this song of me and move on. The chorus is not lifting the way I want it to and the overall song is not impressive. But it is the production and the musicality that makes this song better than it should have been. Well it will do. The first single from this album is "Constant Motion". A pretty odd choice for a first single since it is a song that is not typical Dream Theater. But this is my favourite song in this album because it has a great speed and beat that actually fits the band like a glove. Then we also have the dark and epic chorus that is getting accompanied with a simple but oh so effective guitar riff pattern. But the absolute best part of the song is the guitar and keyboard solo where the complete madness kicks in and your head is going into overdrive. So "Constant Motion" is a very welcome irregularity in Dream Theaters song catalog.

Otherwise from the three previously mentioned songs, there is nothing really impressive on "Systematic Chaos". Sure, "The Dark Eternal Night" has its great moments and "The Ministry of Lost Souls" is not a horrible 15 minute song but the remaining songs on this record is either boring or a song that the band has previously done better. The only really interesting is that several great artists such as Joe Satriani, Corey Taylor, Mikael Åkerfeldt, Steve Vai and more is lending a couple of words on the song "Repentance" (which is a part of Mike Portnoy's Twelve-step Suite, a collection of songs about Mike's struggles with alcohol). And another thing, the mix between modern rock a la Muse and a disco intro (from the song "Prophets of War") is admirable but not something I would want the band to keep doing. So yeah, the second half of "Systematic Chaos" is more or less fillers.

So is my view on "Systematic Chaos" the same as it was on Metal Archives? No, I do not think this album is the worst that the band has released but it is certainly no among the top of the discography. The gap between high and low is unusually big which in turn leads to an uneven album. But "Systematic Chaos" has it moments and with a little luck this album could have been a future classic but it also could have been a total ship wreck.

Songs worthy of recognition: Constant Motion, In The Presence of Enemies

Rating: 6,5/10 Dark Eternal Nights

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More reviews of Dream Theater
When Dream And Day Unite
Images And Words
Awake
Falling Into Infinity
Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
Train of Thought
Octavarium
Black Clouds & Silver Linings
A Dramatic Turn of Events
S/T
The Astonishing

Distance Over Time