School me in Dream Theater

equalsql

I've never followed the band, but recently listened to some of 'Six Degrees..' and was very impressed apart from some of the djent stuff.  

Can anyone recommend any of their albums that are low of djent but high on musicality?

viz

Images and words has zero djent and lots of musicality. Awake is great. Octavarium is great.

beed84

Scenes from a Memory is perhaps their most musical album as is Octavarium. 

Train of Thought is full of excellent riffs albeit being musical. It's not djent per say but it certainly leans more towards the metal side of their progressiveness.

As viz said, Images and Words, their proper debut, is very much musical.

The second disc of Six Degrees is very musical.

Change of Seasons is great too.

Personally I'd avoid anything post Mike Portnoy apart from A Dramatic Turn of Events.

I also wouldn't bother with Black Clouds and Silver Linings.

bingefeller

Images and Words, Awake and Scenes From a Memory are all my favourites. I'm not keen on any of the others.

axisus

I was a MASSIVE DT fan for years. To me the ESSENTIAL purchases are Images and Words (Best - one of my top 10 albums ever), Awake and Scenes from a memory. 

Next Tier would be A change of seasons EP (23 minute title track and some cool live covers), 6 Degrees, Train of thought (much heavier album), and Octavarium

Then Falling into Infinity (didn't like it at the time but it's better than latterday stuff)

I'm not keen on the last 4 albums.

equalsql

Thanks chaps.

Images and Words is getting mentioned alot so I'm off to Spotify to check it out

bingefeller

equalsql said:

Thanks chaps.

Images and Words is getting mentioned alot so I'm off to Spotify to check it out

I&W sounds a bit more dated but I think Petrucci's tone on that was his best.  

Octahedron

beed84;736922" said:

Scenes from a Memory is perhaps their most musical album as is Octavarium. 

Train of Thought is full of excellent riffs albeit being musical. It's not djent per say but it certainly leans more towards the metal side of their progressiveness.

As viz said, Images and Words, their proper debut, is very much musical.

The second disc of Six Degrees is very musical.

Change of Seasons is great too.

Personally I'd avoid anything post Mike Portnoy apart from A Dramatic Turn of Events.

I also wouldn't bother with Black Clouds and Silver Linings.

I would personally disagree with your points RE: Black Clouds, and A Dramatic Turn...

For one, Mangini is a phenomenal drummer. A powerhouse. The self-titled 'current' album is very good. Musically, it's diverse. I found it difficult to care when Portnoy walked out - until they released A Dramatic Turn of Events. Reason being that 90% of the theme seems to me to be the rest of the band whinging about Portnoy walking out. I think it's a piss-weak album to be honest.

As for Black Clouds, I love that album. It's powerful. I got the expanded edition with the covers disc and the instrumental version of the album etc. it's very, very good. Some of DT's finest Portnoy-era work and it has some of my favourite DT tracks.

I wouldn't say that any of those 3 albums were career-defining, but I love DT and BC&SL.

However. Everyone has their own opinions... I'm curious to know what it is that you don't like about them?

Also found it interesting reading this thread. A lot of so-called die-hard fans seem to shelf Octavarium. But I love it... So it's really good to see that album getting some love. It's the first DT album I ever heard, though it's not the first that I bought.

I do agree with others' suggestions too. Images & Words, Six Degrees..., and Scenes From a Memory are all fabulous works.

I also really like Systematic Chaos.

To the OP though, I didn't like the djent stuff to begin with. However, I don't mind it in DT. It really did grow on me over time. I can tolerate it now. I think it takes some skill to pull it off and to work it into a song as a breakdown or just one little component to shake up the feel. Very cool.

joneve

Agree with all of the above.

For me personally, I'm a sucker for a good concept album and Scenes from a Memory is probably my favourite of all time. Absolutely perfect from start to finish. 

bingefeller

SFAM is their masterpiece I reckon.  

chrispy108

Scenes for a Memory is the best.

If you're listening to Images and Words skip the first track....

equalsql

chrispy108;737252" said:

Scenes for a Memory is the best.

If you're listening to Images and Words skip the first track....

Funny you say that... cos the first track is very djentyish ... if that's even a word? It put me off listening to the rest.

chrispy108

The first track on Images and Words is Pull Me Under, which is basically a pop song? Its cheesy and pants IMO, but by far their 'biggest' hit.

What do you mean by djenty? I wouldn't label any of Dream Theater's earlier stuff as that at all.

joneve

I wish I knew what djenty meant

axisus

Pull me under is classic DT! Can't be skipped unless you know you don't like it! Everyone should at least hear it and form their own opinion.

bingefeller

chrispy108 said:

The first track on Images and Words is Pull Me Under, which is basically a pop song? Its cheesy and pants IMO, but by far their 'biggest' hit.

What do you mean by djenty? I wouldn't label any of Dream Theater's earlier stuff as that at all.

I think the tone and songwriting on I&W is quite LA sounding.  Still great though.

chrispy108

joneve said:

I wish I knew what djenty meant

Genre of music: chuggy rhythmic guitars. 

Octahedron

According to Wikipedia... "Djent /ˈdʒɛnt/ is a style of heavy metal music that developed as a spinoff of traditional progressive metal. The word "djent" is an onomatopoeia for the distinctive high-gain, distorted palm-muted, low pitch guitar sound most notably employed by bands like Meshuggah and Sikth."

equalsql

To me 'djenty' means heavy palm muted, ultra overdriven, low tuned guitars syncopated with a clicky overplayed double bass drums that matches exactly the guitar riff. I find it boring and unimaginative.

Elx

Images and Words, Awake and A Change of Seasons are great. The song writing on the rest is poor to average...

chrispy108

I'd perhaps label some of the later Dream Theater as 'djenty', but certainly nothing on Images and Words, and definitely not Pull Me Under - that's just standard metal riffing.