I love this album. 'The Glass Prison' is an amazing powerhouse and has yet to get old. 'Blind Faith' is beautiful - many goosebumps per listen. 'Misunderstood' seems experimental but it is very playful and heavy at the same time. 'The Great Debate' is, for me, one of the greatest songs ever written. Period. Go ahead, just listen to it. Even the last track, 'Disappear', I would argue, is a small masterpiece - packed full of little, subtle, sweet details of artsy musical genius.

The 2nd disc will go down in history for having the longest, yet still tasteful song (as the entire disc is considered to be one song).

Overall, an amazing double-disc album.

A largely ambitious album, that although not quite as concise as 'Metropolis II', still manages to keep the listener from skipping any tracks at all. Some songs I think do fail slightly with unnecessary repetition, but when such marvellous songs as 'The Glass Prison' and 'War inside my Head' are so memorable, it's easy to ignore that.

I probably should check out this album someday. I think it's the only one I haven't along with the debut.

Revisiting this comment to wipe it clean and say this instead: Definitely their best work, in my humble opinion. I do believe this is their pinnacle. You basically get 2 albums, each one feels like a full experience in itself. There's a lot of variety and experimentation present, each side has a different feel to it, yet as it all adds up it makes perfect sense and nothing feels out of place. This thing just vibes, some relatable lyrical content in the pt.2 in my case. What can I say, this record is absolutely marvelous and unique.

Perfect Progressive Metal experience. If I had to pick one Dream Theater album which contains almost everything that this band have ever done, it would be this album. Essential.

Yeah, it's definitely one of their greatest albums. Their most ambitious and experimental release.

Nothing they've done since has come close to this.

I said Metropolis II was their best one... I was wrong...

THIS ONE IS WAY BETTER!!!

Just listening The Glass Prison did blow my mind

And obviously the homonymous track is a POWERHOUSE OF ABSOLUTE QUALITY!

This is probably their last "classic" record. Things started to go down hill after this one.

Just because of "Goodnight Kiss" and a few other worthy songs, I'm not going to say that it's a great album. Sorry, it's not.

A very solid record and a pretty good follow up to Metropolis, although some songs fall flat. I do love the title track, as well as The Glass Prison and The Great Debate. I like both Blind Faith and the oddly experimental Misunderstood, which has one of the weirdest ending to a DT song. However, I cannot stand Disappear. I absolutely despise it and I do not know why. It's just so bad that it lowers my ranking of the album all by itself. Overall, this is still a very good release, solid 8.5 leaning towards a 9.

Written by Aries Rising on 31.05.2018 at 06:52

This is probably their last "classic" record. Things started to go down hill after this one.

I don't think so, this album was the end of their crazy journey through experimental and skill show mayhem. Everything after this album has been built on a solid foundation, very mature, more balanced and expressing their skill with humility instead of exploding with random levels of overwhelming detail. And that, my friend is why they don't write music like they used to, they've out grown it. But to be fair, Images and Words was a masterpiece.

Their most underrated record

Written by Aries Rising on 31.05.2018 at 06:52

This is probably their last "classic" record. Things started to go down hill after this one.

For me, they went downhill after Octavarium.

Written by JoHn Doe on 01.07.2023 at 09:58

Written by Aries Rising on 31.05.2018 at 06:52

This is probably their last "classic" record. Things started to go down hill after this one.

For me, they went downhill after Octavarium.

ToT and Octa are good but just not as good as SDOIT and the 90s stuff, imo.

Written by Aries Rising on 01.07.2023 at 11:02

Written by JoHn Doe on 01.07.2023 at 09:58

Written by Aries Rising on 31.05.2018 at 06:52

This is probably their last "classic" record. Things started to go down hill after this one.

For me, they went downhill after Octavarium.

ToT and Octa are good but just not as good as SDOIT and the 90s stuff, imo.

I prefer, these days at least, both TOT and Octavarium to SDOIT.
Their 90s work is more enjoyable than what came after for me as well.