For years, Dream Theater has been the definitive modern progressive rock band. They've consistantly done everything in the prog rule book, except to the extreme, all the while adding new rules and breaking some long-established ones. Up until Scenes From A Memory, Mike, John, John, and new keyboardist Jordan Rudess have been long time defiers of one progressive rock rule: the rule that states sometime you have to make a concept album. This was avoided in all of their releases for some reason, but after fans commented on how they wanted a Metropolis Pt. 2 to go along with the song "Metropolis Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper", they got what they wanted. The idea of a part 2 was preposterous to DT, for they intended the Pt. 1 thing to be a joke, and there would be no part 2. After they decided to work on it, the whole thing snowballed from one song, to a whole album that spun a murder-mystery story. The whole album starts of with some spoken words from a psychiatrist, and through hypnotic regression, the whole album takes place. What starts off as a short little ballad builds up into "Strange De Ja Vu" and "Through My Words", then adds up into "Fatal Tragedy", containing one of DT's most badass riffs ever. Then, "Beyond This LIfe" softens it up a bit, all the while bringing back moments from the first song. The other standout track, "Home", a Middle-Eastern themed song that contains some good riffs on Petrucci and Myung's parts. This leads into another one of Dream Theater's instrumentals, "The Dance of Eternity", which sets the stage for the slower paced "One Last Time", and "The Spirit Carries On", a feel-good song about reincarnation. The final song, "Finally Free" wraps up the album, ending with a sound effects and talking section right at the end. The end has the main character of the story, Nicholas, killed by the psychiatrist who occasionally contributed spoken parts for the transitions between songs. If you want the whole story of this album, then you need to go check it out on a DT fan site, or Wikipedia, since it would take up a lot of space writing it. All in all, this whole album from start to finish is a masterpiece, with the then-newcomer Rudess contributing some of his mad crazy key skills that outshine even the great Kevin Moore, who was present on all of DT's releases up until Awake. He even outdoes Derek Sherenian, who is a great keyboardist in his own right, but is nowhere near touching this guy. Petrucci is on top of his game with lyric writing and with song writing, as the whole album is able to connect each of its songs together in a way that makes you think you're not even listening to a concept album. It also does a very hard thing by not only telling a story and connecting the songs, but actually making references to the first song in music and in lyrics in a way that doesn't sound forced. It all sounds like it should be there. All in all, it's a great album. Buy it now, or feel the wrath of God, Allah, Buddha, Shiva, Grayskull, Science, or whatever supreme being you believe in for not buying the album.

:)