ALBUM REVIEW: Dream Theater – Distance over Time

By Ben Gorelick

Marking their fourteenth studio album, progressive metal giant Dream Theater’s Distance over Time offers a return to form from their previous album The Astonishing (2016). Being much heavier and not focused on a central concept or story lets this record feel more like one of their classic albums. If you were a fan of any of Dream Theater’s work from the late 90’s to the mid 2000’s, this is the album for you.

The album starts off with its lead single, “Untethered Angel,” a track that depicts a person at their lowest point trying to start rehabilitating themselves. Just this track is heavier than anything from The Astonishing. It is clear from the first riff that Dream Theater is truly near their best on this record. The mix feels dark and cacophonous without drowning out the vocals or feeling too confusing, and the way the drums are mixed in feels much more reminiscent of when Mike Portnoy was in the band. The solo sections features the guitarist, John Petrucci and keyboardist, Jordan Rudess absolutely shredding over the chord changes before taking it into the final bridge and chorus and finishes off on a held chord.

The second track, “Paralyzed” starts off with a foreboding, albeit fairly unmemorable riff that leads into an explosion of distorted bass and guitar. However this doesn’t last long, as Dream Theater frontman James LaBrie starts his vocal line. Overall, this song is fairly similar to “Untethered Angel,” in both form and content, as this depicts a person “Addicted to the game / Breaking beneath the strain”.

Dream Theater keeps the same lyrical focus on “Fall into the Light”, written by bassist John Myung. This sees the band focusing a bit more on their progressive roots, with semi-frequent changes in time signature, and an absolutely beautiful change in tone in the middle of the song, from hard and heavy to almost nostalgic melancholy. This change is fairly short lived however, as the band bursts out with a fast percussive blast, and rolls into a keyboard solo and the final chorus.

The next track, “Barstool Hero” is the most out of place on the album, but in a good way. It sounds almost like a Styx track mixed with a Yes track and the better, almost sky-blue rock parts of The Astonishing. With regards to lyrics and form, the song is in line with the rest of the album thus far, with a lonely central figure and some verses and choruses before an instrumental break and the subsequent closing chorus, but the final bridge and chorus sees the song take a turn for a brighter more positive side, as the figure in the song finds where he belongs. However in this track the time signature changes throughout feel awkward and unclear, and the singing is not impressive compared to other tracks.

“Room 137” is the first Dream Theater song to be written by their drummer Mike Mangini. The beats and riffs on this track feel almost primordial, and the lyrics are incredibly cryptic, making it one of the standout songs on the album. In addition to this, the guitar solo in the middle feels much different from the previous ones on the album due to the Petrucci making use of a much broader range of his instrument, as well as implementing quick intervallic jumps instead of longer diatonic runs.

The next track is “S2N,” standing for Signal to Noise. The track starts off with an absolutely meaty bass riff that grows into the full band as a grating machine-like voice mutters “Are we paying attention / Or are we drifting? / Too much negative action / Not enough positive reaction.” This song is an attempt at commenting on current events, something that Dream Theater has done in the past with their track “The Great Debate” from Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (2002). This track pales in comparison to “The Great Debate” when it comes to discussing the topics, as it doesn’t focus on any one topic, and just offers a generic “stop letting these problems happen” message that is heard all too much these days. Instrumentally, however, the track absolutely is one of the best on the album.

“At Wit’s End” is the longest track on the album at nearly 9½ minutes. It is incredibly thematically similar to the first three tracks, with themes of isolation and depression, but musically it is comparable to some of Dream Theater’s best tracks from Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From A Memory (1999) and Octavarium (2005) with the hard and dark depths with fast and demanding interwoven parts contrasted by absolutely soaring highs with great melodic contour, and a nearly angelic ending.

The eighth track, “Out of Reach,” is lyrically and musically very different from the rest of the album. Written by LaBrie, the frontman, it’s a love song, that starts out acoustic and progresses into a slightly heavier second verse and chorus. This track also demonstrates LaBrie’s incredible vocal prowess, as he traverses high and low from soft to loud while demonstrating an immense level of control. However the instrumentals on this track were not enough to match up with the great vocals. Not a bad track, but definitely not one that stands out.

The final track, “Pale Blue Dot” goes back to the theme of isolation, but in a slightly different way. The main question asked by this track is “Who’s out there to save us from ourselves?” The grand instrumentals truly make the listener feel small; the lyrics are musing on just how insignificant all of the things that we do on Earth are in the grand scheme of the cosmos. The rhythms, meter changes, and sounds that are used are very similar to those used on Metropolis Part 2. This is my personal favorite track on the album, and the one that I would recommend for getting into this album as a fan of Dream Theater.

This album is in some ways a return to what many fans regard as classic Dream Theater. While most of the songs contain very lyrically similar material, the sheer heaviness of the music and the masterful writing and solos, combined with the better mixing and mastering shows that a great amount of effort and care went into the writing, recording, and engineering. All of this combines to make a great progressive metal album. While this might not be the best album to approach if you don’t already know the genre, if you are a fan of Dream Theater or progressive rock or metal, this album has something for you.