• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

Parasomnia is the sixteenth studio album from Dream Theater and the first to feature founding drummer Mike Portnoy, who famously tried to put the band "on hold" after 2009's Black Clouds and Silver Linings only to watch his once and future bandmates go on without him, recording five albums in the subsequent 15 years. Apparently, enough water has gone under the bridge and Portnoy is back in the fold with LaBrie, Rudess, Myung and Petrucci. I've never been a huge fan of the band, though I've seen them a few times and have nothing but respect for the obvious musical talents of the band members. I liked both Black Clouds and A View from the Top of the World and wondered what the return of Portnoy would mean.

As expected, this is still Dream Theater and everything on Parasomnia will remind you of that fact. Complex, melodic songwriting, catchy choruses and sprawling compositions have been Dream Theater hallmarks for well over 30 years and are all present across the 71+ minutes of the album. You get straight-up heavy metal, jazzy twists and turns, dense layers of proggy guitars and keyboards that require more than a passing level of attention, all in abundance. And it sounds great, no less than you expect. What is also here is a level of pretension that I haven't heard in the past few releases. I like "Bend the Clock," with the harmonized chorus and Petrucci channeling David Gilmour for the solo, but then there's the 11+ minute "Dead Asleep," which I'm sure was intended to be deep, and maybe it is, but comes across like a knockoff of a Stephen King short story that is several chapters too long. "Midnight Messiah" features LaBrie using his "tough" voice on the chorus, which sounds forced. Finally, dwarfing "Dead Asleep" is the nearly 20-minute closer, "The Shadow Man Incident," featuring a dizzying multitude of parts, from Queensrÿche-esque spoken passages to '70s Rush lead guitar indulgences to over-sentimental vocal lines, all dragging the album ponderously toward its conclusion, which always feels so very far away.

Dyed in the Wool Dream Theater fans are going to like Parasomina regardless of what I write and that is perfectly fine. However, if, like me, you've enjoyed the more focused and direct version of Dream Theater that's been making the rounds for the past few years, buckle up when you hit "play" on Parasomnia, as Dream Theater have given in to the urge to throw everything down to the kitchen sink in your direction.