I bought Dream Theater's new CD Systematic Chaos yesterday during my lunch and I've listened through a couple times, which is enough to offer some initial impressions.

First of all, lyrically, this isn't going to win any awards. John Petrucci decided to go into a more fantasy based direction and I'm really not feeling it, especially in In The Presence of Enemies, the epic track. I'm warming up to it a bit, but it's honestly not his best work. He's done fantasy/sci-fi lyrics before but back in the Images and Words days, those were also covered in metaphor and poetic writing. This latest effort is a lot more…straight ahead without much of the poetry. Another lyrical complaint is the overuse of distorted vocals in The Dark Eternal Night and Constant Motion. It's just not my thing.

Musically, In The Presence of Enemies is an awesome track, after listening to it a few times. There's only one section of the CD I don't really get right now which is the middle instrumental section of The Dark Eternal Night which feels very…out of place.

Overall, I'm enjoying it. Repentance is an awesome song, as it Ministry of Lost Souls. There's some seriously killer riffs in In The Presence of Enemies Part 2. Right now it's about on par or slightly below Octavarium on my favorite Jordan Rudess era album list, with Octavarium being behind Scenes From A Memory.

Woohoo! I'm swinging by the store on my lunch break to pick up the new album. As is my tradition, I've been listening to every Dream Theater CD from their first to their most recent in order over the past week or so. I'm on the last song of the last album that should be timed to end just as I pull into the parking lot of Best Buy.

I also brought my MacBook Pro into work today so I can rip it immediately and throw it onto the iPod for further listening.

I'm slightly worried about this album as one of the released songs gives me some reason to believe they're moving towards being crazy and technical for the sake of being crazy and technical…however, that's just one song. The other single has grown on me over the last couple weeks. We'll see…

Wassy came over last night to hang out and listen to some music, since I've started to introduce her to the kind of things I'm interested in.

The point was for me to get a better idea of what she was interested in aside from Porcupine Tree so I could recommend some stuff to her. We started out with some OSI since I knew she liked that from a sample I sent over, then moved into Chroma Key and back over into Fates Warning. Then a little Transatlantic.

At that point there was really nothing she said she didn't like, so…with great hesitation I pulled out the Dream Theater.

And she actually liked it, which blew me away. I was thinking it was going to be a little too "out there" for her or that she wouldn't like LaBrie's vocals, but she seemed to really enjoy it. I say "seemed" because I don't think it's sunk in.

Although, she did immediately ask about going to one of their shows…which we are. I've got tickets now to the show at SUNY Buffalo on August 20th. Her first concert, my 4th time seeing Dream Theater. Row S, middle of the theater. They're out in support of their new album coming in 2 weeks, Systematic Chaos, which is why it's picture is gracing the top of this blog entry.

I didn't really expect her to like everything I threw at her, but…I guess my musical tastes aren't so weird after all. Or something.

Anyway, I believe she's dragging me CD shopping on monday I'm evil.