Dream Theater! Once my favourite band of all time, now number 2. I took an involuntary break from them for a while, and upon return realised my feelings had changed to a lot of their music. Also since at some point I stupidly deleted my old ranking of them, I feel now is the time to make a new one.

Feel free to bash my terrible taste.

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24emd | 23.01.2024

	1.	Dream Theater - Black Clouds & Silver Linings (9.5/10 - 2009) This album would be perfect and possibly in my top 3 of all time, if “Wither” was replaced with a better ballad. Every other song featured on this album is perfect, even including “A Rite Of Passage” despite its terrible lyrics. Multiple of Petrucci’s best solos are featured here, as well as some of the most intense and emotional moments on any DT record.
	2.	Dream Theater - Dream Theater (9.5/10 - 2013) This album beats Black Clouds on consistency, even if the peaks are ever so slightly lower. Each song is different and of high quality, and I am unable to pick a standout track other than “Illumination Theory”, showcasing the consistency of this amazing album.
	3.	Dream Theater - A Dramatic Turn Of Events (9.0/10 - 2011) Many longer songs on this album, with a few ballads thrown in between, all of high quality. Some of the most exciting passages and interesting atmospheres can be heard on this record, though it does have a tendency to get up its own arse now and then.
	4.	Dream Theater - Train Of Thought (8.5/10 - 2003) This entry is a somewhat unique one in DT’s discography – though it has all their established elements present, the direction in songwriting is special, with some of DT’s longest, heaviest, and most intense and diverse songs. The quality is high throughout, especially in “Honour Thy Father” and “Stream Of Consciousness” which showcase tasteful and purposeful technical absurdity.
	5.	Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory (8.5/10 - 1999) This album takes an excellent unhinged and wacky approach to an equally unhinged and wacky concept, a masterclass in storytelling. Lovely melodic solos are hidden within, and keyboards take a more prominent role than ever before.
	6.	Dream Theater - Images And Words (8.0/10 - 1992) DT’s sophomore effort still shows signs of a little immaturity, but is mostly consistent in quality and is always an enjoyable and unskippable release. The songs are much simpler than what would come after, but most can stand against a lot of their later tracks.
	7.	Dream Theater - A View From The Top Of The World (8.0/10 - 2021) The technical sections take too much of a forefront on a few of the songs, but many good tracks still await, the title track being especially amazing. This album is a decent position to be in 35 years into a career, and remains enjoyable and worth listening to a few years later.
	8.	Dream Theater - Octavarium (8.0/10 - 2005) The title track competes as one of DT’s best songs ever, but everything that precedes it varies from average to good. The album does generally follow the trend of improving with each song, albeit with outliers.
	9.	Dream Theater - Awake (7.5/10 - 1994) An album that once was considered my least favourite by the band, Awake has largely grown on me. Each element I disliked before has become moderately enjoyable now, the darker atmosphere, LaBrie’s semi-aggressive vocals, and the heavy and tonally harsh riffs. Some of DT’s best songs ever actually reside on this album.
	10.	Dream Theater - Distance Over Time (7.5/10 - 2019) A lot of the songs on this album miss, but the ones that hit, hit hard. “S2N”, “Room 137”, and “Out Of Reach” all feel out of place in a band like DT’s discography, while the highs like “At Wit’s End” and “Pale Blue Dot”, while interesting in direction, are incredible.
	11.	Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos (7.5/10 - 2007) A lot of the songwriting on this album also misses, but there are a few very good moments which make it an intriguing listen. This was one I replayed a lot, due to its unsettling atmosphere at times, but was largely turned off by songs like “Constant Motion”, “The Dark Eternal Night” and “Prophets Of War”. Overall it may contend for my most played DT album, which is weird considering how much of the album isn’t that great.
	12.	Dream Theater - When Dream And Day Unite (7.5/10 - 1989) This is a difficult album to rank, simply because it sounds like a completely different band. Dominici’s vocals are fine, and the production and songwriting are very classic-prog, but in the end it is actually a very good album, one I overlooked for very long. Ultimately I would prefer listening to this than anything below Awake, but its best moments and features probably aren’t as good as some of the albums near the middle of this list. This debut is great and will always be, the young musicians in an early age for prog metal really creating something special.
	13.	Dream Theater - Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence (7.0/10 - 2001) The title track boasts strong songwriting from time to time, with a few of its movements being irritating, but most being enjoyable and effective. The first disc of this album, however, contains 5 songs I just really don’t care for. The heavier moments of “The Great Debate” are pretty sick, and the riffing chaos that follows the solos in “The Glass Prison” is also great, but “Blind Faith”, “Misunderstood” and “Disappear” ultimately have almost fever dream-ish qualities that leave me indifferent.
	14.	Dream Theater - Falling Into Infinity (6.0/10 - 1997) This album has a couple great songs, but they are mostly lost to mediocrity, and even songs that verge on being straight up bad. DT is a band that I know the discography of inside and out, back to front, but songs like “Take Away My Pain”, “You Not Me”, “Burning My Soul”, “Just Let Me Breathe” and “Anna Lee” I cannot hum – they are genuinely nothing memorable or enjoyable.
	15.	Dream Theater - The Astonishing (6.0/10 - 2016) The Astonishing is a weird album in the sense that the abridged version in the guitar tab book is actually quite solid and even well-rounded, having coincidentally every song that I found enjoyable in one way or another. That shortened album would easily get around a 7.5 or 8, but here we are talking about the actual album. Everything I can say has already been said, but the verdict is that any solid storytelling and enjoyable music is lost in flat narrative and pointless interludes and even entire songs. The album already has more full length tracks than almost every musical out there, which makes it long-winded, confusing, unengaging, and unable to evoke emotions. Nothing here holds the emotion and relatability Broadway characters portrayed in solos like “Santa Fe” and “Goodbye” (Newsies and Catch Me If You Can, respectively). It can be appreciated that this endeavour was an honest and genuine venture of Petrucci, but comparisons with the rest of their discography will never be pretty.