When Dream Theater introduced their new file, Parasomnia, followers hoped that one thing particular would come. What they may not have anticipated was simply how heavy the album would develop 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 feel typically individuals overlook the significance of the metallic facet to Dream Theater, particularly with me within the band,” Portnoy stated (by way of Blabbermouth). “It’s a extremely essential facet. It all the time has been. If you happen to have a look at the very, very first music from the very first album, in ‘A Fortune In Lies’, I used to be enjoying thrash, double bass, thrash beats proper outta the gate.”
That metallic spine has all the time been a part of their DNA, based on Portnoy, even because the band constructed its popularity 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 a giant a part of the band’s sound, and, to be trustworthy, I feel it’s a giant a part of the band’s success.”
Portnoy pointed to the band’s capacity to faucet into each the progressive and metallic crowds as a key purpose for his or her attain and longevity. “There’s a number of prog bands or prog metallic bands which might be nonetheless form of underground and nonetheless play smaller reveals or possibly don’t promote as many data as a result of possibly they haven’t tapped into the metallic facet.”
“However the truth that the metallic facet is such a giant, massive a part of our sound, I feel, is what elevates Dream Theater to be the cream of the crop when it comes to ticket gross sales and file gross sales within the prog universe,” he continued. “I feel it’s that metallic facet that does it. The truth that we may play these massive metallic festivals like Aftershock or Louder Than Life or Hellfest or Graspop, the truth that we may pull off gigs like that as a prog metallic band speaks loads for that metallic facet.”
Regardless of its heavy tone, Parasomnia wasn’t designed to sound that method — it merely advanced in that course. “And when writing Parasomnia, we simply naturally fell into it,” Portnoy defined. “Possibly it was the darkish subject material of sleep problems and nightmares and issues like that, possibly that helped us gravitate in the direction of it.”
For followers questioning how this new materials stacks up towards the band’s earlier work, Portnoy supplied a transparent comparability: “If I needed to describe Parasomnia, the album, to someone, I’d say it form of has the darkness and heaviness of Prepare Of Thought with the cinematic strategy of Scenes From A Reminiscence.”
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