Mike Portnoy leaves Dream Theater, thousands of prog-nerds outraged

But seriously folks, Dream Theater without drummer Mike Portnoy just doesn't feel right. This one's for you, man!

Enter The Final Frontier with Iron Maiden and Dream Theater!

While Iron Maiden may have failed to find a new graphic designer (90s computer images just aren't that cool anymore), at least the band is finally coming back to North America and will be joined by Dream Theater. And they answered my letter too! There is definitely a show within 6 hours driving distance:

Jul. 18 - Chicago, IL - First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre

The question is how much will tickets cost?

UPDATE: Tickets for the show go on sale Saturday, March 13.

Listen to some Iron Maiden and Dream Theater below:

Dream Theater's Mike Portnoy will play drums on the new Avenged Sevenfold Album

This is the first time (and maybe last) I will ever post anything about Avenged Sevenfold, which I will justify by saying Mike Portnoy playing drums on the album is BIG news (well for Dream Theater nerds at least).

It will be interesting to see the drummer step out of the prog style and play more "commercial friendly" metal music. I imagine the band decided they needed to break out the big guns if recording a new album after the passing of drummer Jimmy Sullivan.

I can't say I hate Avenged Sevenfold, but I have always looked at them as a gateway band. The kind of radio friendly metal that eventually gets people into the "real deal." (whatever the hell that means...)

The vocalist is a bit nasally and whiny for my taste, but the band does write some catchy tunes and has some sweet harmonies, as can be seen in the song below.

I do think it will be interesting to see how Dream Theater fans and the general metal community reacts to this news.

Oh, and for the hell of it, I'll post a classic Dream Theater tune below too. Might as well go with the closest thing it ever had to a commercial hit.

Dream Theater lays on the cheese with "Wither"

Actually, I kind of like the song and the video is fitting, but c'mon you have so many other rockin' tunes on Black Clouds and Silver Linings! From a marketing standpoint of course, this is the shortest song on the album and good for radio play, so not a bad idea.

Not that Dream Theater gets played on the hit radio stations that often anyways. Check out the video below:

Dream Theater: "Black Clouds and Silver Linings" Album Review

Today Dream Theater's new album "Black Clouds and Silver Lining" arrived in stores. Check out a brief excerpt from my review below and click the link to see the review in its entirety.

"After nine years and a few recent mediocre albums, it may seem as if progressive metal band Dream Theater is losing some steam. Leave it to the masters of musicianship to prove the naysayers wrong by releasing Black Clouds and Silver Linings — an album that contains some of the band’s best material in more than a decade."

For more check out The Daily Iowan's Web site (it's the second review on the page).

P.S. Yes I know that Jordan Rudess was misspelled as Jordan Rudders. It must have happened in the edit. Not my doing.

Dream Theater: "A Rite of Passage" is HEAVY!

Work! Damn you!

This new video by Dream Theater for the song "A Rite of Passage" is not playing for me, but I'll put it up in hopes it works for you guys. It is Dream Theater after all so we can expect a few things...

1) A five-minute-plus song featuring some heavily layered vocals and a soaring guitar solo from John Petrucci.

2) Some kind of dark sci-fi/fantasy themed video, with possible special effects.

3) A heavy breakdown of some sort, since this is modern Dream Theater we are talking about here.

Lets see if this video starts working and if my predictions are correct...

UPDATE: It turns out that the video does work, you just need to hit pause and let it load properly. I recommend going to the crapper and then coming back and enjoying what is actually a fairly cool/slightly cheesy music video that does contain most of what I predicted above!

If "A Rite of Passage" is any indicator of the heaviness of the album "Black Clouds and Silver Linings" then sign me up! However, it is guaranteed that there will probably be at least one mediocre/lame song on the CD, but I think this song could make up for that.

Besides you can always make a Dream Theater Metal Mix Tape that includes your favorite heavy songs by the band. Imagine...

Randy's Dream Theater Metal Mix Tape
1) "Ytse Jam" ("When Dream and Day Unite")
2) "Pull Me Under" ("Images and Words")
3) "Strange Deja Vu" ("Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From a Memory")
3) "The Glass Prison" ("Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence")
4) "As I Am" ("Thoughts Without Words")
5) "Dark Eternal Night ("Systematic Chaos")
6) "A Rite of Passage" ("Black Clouds and Silver Linings")

That would be a sweet album!