Product Description
Dream Theater's 2013 self-titled opus is a masterpiece of ambition, adventure and redefined purpose. Dream Theater heralds an exceptionally energized and profoundly dynamic emergent chapter for the melodic, progressive and consistently heavy masters of hard rock invention. Dream Theater is a name synonymous with the penultimate synthesis of studied expertise and relentless creative passion. It is an album that at once recalls the brilliant hallmarks that have made the band icons to fellow musicians and hard rock fans alike, while simultaneously a bold declaration of a future yet to come.

Dream Theater serves as both entry-point for curious newcomers and shining beacon to longtime devotees. It is a landmark statement befitting of not only the band's multiple milestones, but of their increasing prowess, perseverance and overall fulfillment from creating diverse, nuanced and atmospheric compositions. Evocative, transcendent, genre-defining and as hungry as ever, Dream Theater's music is as timeless as the dozen-album strong discography and more than 25 years of performing would suggest, while alternately ever-advancing toward new horizons.

1. False Awakening Suite
2. The Enemy Inside
3. The Looking Glass
4. Enigma Machine
5. The Bigger Picture
6. Behind The Veil
7. Surrender To Reason
8. Along For The Ride
9. Illumination Theory

CD Standard Edition
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DJ80VMM/?tag=imwan-20

CD/DVD-A Deluxe Edition
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DJ80VLS/?tag=imwan-20

Dream Theater have announced the dates for the first leg of their upcoming European tour and also announced that they plan to tour North America next spring.
The European tour will be kicking off on January 15th in Porto, Portugal and will feature shows in 30 cities in 16 countries across Europe before concluding on February 24th in Helsinki, Finland.

The band will be launching the tour in support of their forthcoming self-titled album which will be released on September 24th and was recorded at Cove City Sound Studios in Glen Cove, New York and produced by John Petrucci and mixed and engineered by Richard Chycki (Aerosmith, Rush).

"I see every new album as an opportunity to start over," says Petrucci. "To either build or improve upon a direction that has been evolving over time or to completely break new ground.

"This is the first self-titled album of our career and there is nothing I can think of that makes a statement of musical and creative identity stronger than that. We've fully explored all of the elements that make us unique, from the epic and intense to the atmospheric and cinematic. We're incredibly excited about Dream Theater and can't wait for everyone to hear it."

The band will soon be announcing tour dates for their North American trek in support of the album. That tour is expected to kick off in March of next year.

1/15 Porto, Portugal Coliseum of Porto
1/16 Madrid, Spain Palacio Visalegre
1/17 Pamplona, Spain Anaitasuna
1/18 Barcelona, Spain St. Jordi Club
1/20 Milan, Italy Mediolanum Forum
1/21 Florence, Italy Obihall
1/22 Rome, Italy Palalottomatica
1/23 Padova, Italy Geox Theatre
1/25 Vienna, Austria Gasometer
1/26 Munich, Germany Zenith
1/27 Zurich, Switzerland Volkshaus
1/29 Prague, Czech Republic Tipsport Arena
1/30 Ludwigsburg, Germany Arena
1/31 Paris, France Zenith
2/1 Offenbach, Germany Stadthalle
2/3 Zagreb, Croatia Cibona
2/4 Ljubljana, Slovenia Small Tivoli
2/5 Katowice, Poland Spodek Hall
2/7 Bamberg, Germany Stechert Arena
2/8 Deinze, Belgium Brielpoort
2/9 Hannover, Germany Swiss Life Hall
2/10 Saarbrucken, Germany Saarlandhalle
2/12 Lille, France Aeronef
2/13 Manchester, UK O2 Apollo
2/14 London, UK Wembley Arena
2/15 Wolverhampton, UK Wolverhampton Civic Hall
2/17 Amsterdam, Holland Heineken Music Hall
2/18 Dusseldorf, Germany Mitsubishi Electric Halle
2/20 Copenhagen, Denmark Falconer
2/24 Helsinki, Finland Icehall

Cool. They've been on a roll for quite some time and even though Mangini didn't completely replace Portnoy on the last album he's a brilliant drummer and I look forward to hearing his contributions now that he's been in the band for a while. I guess this pushes back the release of their "Live At Luna Park" CD/DVD set, which was originally supposed to be out this summer.

Looking forward to this. I really liked their last disc. With Portnoy quitting, I think it actually rejuvenated the band. He's a great drummer, but I find that the last couple of disc he did with them to be overbearing when it came to him.

The Blu Ray is also on my list.

I agree completely. Portnoy is amazing but his personality is unbearable and the group now has more of a direction and not just too much senseless noodling.

Mangini is a fantastic drummer-they didn't lose much at all

Looking forward to this release. I was slightly disappointed with the last release but am anticipating this one will be better as Mangini was involved in the creative process this time around.

I'm a huge fan of Portnoy. The only thing that annoyed me with his performances on the last couple DT albums he played on was how he was slipping his own vocals in at seemingly every opportunity. The guy is a great drummer but a good singer he is not. BTW, the Flying Colors album was a really good record and one people should check out if they haven't heard it already.

Couldn't agree more with your comments about Portnoy, and I second your recommendation of the Flying Colors album. Anyone checking it out for the first time shouldn't expect a prog supergroup (like, say, Transatlantic). I was initially disappointed because of my expectations, but after another 2-3 listens I fell in love with it.

1. False Awakening Suite
I. Sleep Paralysis
II. Night Terrors
III. Lucid Dream

2. The Enemy Inside

3. The Looking Glass

4. Enigma Machine

5. The Bigger Picture

6. Behind The Veil

7. Surrender To Reason

8. Along For The Ride

9. Illumination Theory
I. Paradoxe de la Lumière Noire
II. Live, Die, Kill
III. The Embracing Circle
IV. The Pursuit of Truth
V. Surrender, Trust & Passion

I picked up the Deluxe set for the DVD-A 5.1 disc. I am not very familiar with Dream Theater's music, so I looked at this as an opportunity to check them out. While I think the music on this release is pretty good Prog, the CD's sound is badly compressed. Even worse, the DVD-A has no menu for audio or song selection. My OPPO BD player had trouble playing it (skips) and it would not play at all in my Denon DVD player. Either I got a defective disc or these was poorly mastered all the way around. I have returned it to Amazon for an exchange. Hopefully I'll get a DVD that will play.

Forgot about this release and just ordered it. I'm seeing The Rudess Morgenstein Project here on LI in late November.

The DVD-A is a true DVD-A. So there is no video component for song selection, etc. Personally I like this format better because I can play it in my car where I wouldn't be able to if it was a DVD-Video/Audio. I never tried it on my BluRay player or with my PC, I took it straight to my car and it plays fine.

This is a really good album, probably the best thing they've done since the Octavarium album from 2005.

The last album they did, A Dramatic Turn of Events, is my least favorite Dream Theater album. It seemed like they got stuck in the rut with the last few albums, as Systematic Chaos, Black Clouds & Silver Linings, and A Dramatic Turn of Events all had the same sort of vibe to it. It also seemed like those albums had points where they dragged due to excessive running lengths (all three are 75+ minutes). The new self-titled album has more of a contemporary feel to it without being too commercial...more in line with Images and Words and Octavarium.

And if Petrucci has learned anything during the last few years, it's that he should NEVER do another album without having a drummer involved in the process. Mangini makes this so much more vibrant than what we heard on the A Dramatic Turn of Events album. I just have the feeling that record would have been so much better of Mangini (or Portnoy) would have been involved in the writing/arranging process.

I'd probably give this a 7.5/10. Favorite tracks are Surrender To Reason, The Bigger Picture and Enigma Machine.

I disagree. Black Clouds & Silver Linings, and A Dramatic Turn of Events are at the top of my list. That's with two different drummers.

I got a replacement from Amazon 2 weeks ago and had trouble with the DVD in my Oppo BDP-105 again. I tried it in my Oppo BDP-83 and it played fine. I emailed Oppo and they verified that there was a firmware update coming to fix this issue as well as some others. The new firmware was released 11/21/13 and I can confirm that this was the fix.