Band:	Dream Theater
Album:	Systematic Chaos
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	June 05, 2007
Guest review by:	Spyroid

Disc I
01. In The Presence Of Enemies - Part I
    1 - Prelude
    2 - Resurrection
02. Forsaken
03. Constant Motion
04. The Dark Eternal Night
05. Repentance
    1 - VIII. Regret
    2 - IX. Restitution
06. Prophets Of War
07. The Ministry Of Lost Souls
08. In The Presence Of Enemies - Part II
    1 - Heretic
    2 - The Slaughter Of The Damned
    3 - The Reckoning
    4 - Salvation

Disc II [special edition DVD]
+ The Entire Album Mixed In 5.1 Surround Sound
+ Chaos In Progress - The Making of Systematic Chaos

With every album in the "new era" of Dream Theater, the band has tried to do something new. "Six Degrees" was experimenting with extreme track lengths, "Train of Thought" was written in three weeks and shows the extreme discipline in the studio. "Octavarium" might be one of the most thought-through albums ever with every track in a new key, all the connections to the number eight and so on. But "Systematic Chaos" is just a more or less ordinary album in their discography, but that doesn't mean it should be despised. I guess Dream Theater will never let me down.

The main reasons why I like this album are the production and the incredible skills of the musicians. Even if they've always been awesome musicians, I think I can hear some progress on every album, especially with Petrucci, and that's really fun. Also, the production must be one of the clearest in prog metal history - sometimes crunchy productions can add several numbers to the rating but in the case of Dream Theater I prefer as clear production as possible. We also have some things I don't like that much, of course. I would've liked Myung to get some more space and I also think it's sad that James doesn't use his calm voice (like in "Human Equation") in this album because I really think Dream Theater needs some contrast in the vocals. It's nice that both James and Mike do some rap stuff to provide the contrast, but I would really have preferred calm parts instead of rap. The most important thing with this album for me is that it, at last, totally made me accept all the harder stuff in their new era. At first I hated songs like "Constant Motion" and "Dark Eternal Night", and the second even more after reading the lyrics. But when I listened to them closely I heard some stuff that just made me love them. The solo part in "Constant Motion" is one of the best ever, and the bridge between 02:48 and 02:58 is insane, just like the riff at 05:53 in "Dark Eternal Night". Discover more yourself, there are some nuggets in almost every track.

Not the first Dream Theater album you should buy, except maybe if you only heard "Train of Thought" and loved it. But it's still totally worth checking out. And for all the fans of older Dream Theater - the track "In the Presence of Enemies" - god damn it!