When Dream Theater introduced their new document, Parasomnia, followers hoped that one thing particular would come. What they won’t have anticipated was simply how heavy the album would transform compared to the band’s newest efforts.
In a current dialog with Dylan Gowan of Banger TV, Portnoy talked about such a renewed depth, and the way the band leaned into their heaviest impulses.
“Yeah, I believe generally folks overlook the significance of the steel facet to Dream Theater, particularly with me within the band,” Portnoy mentioned (by way of Blabbermouth). “It’s a very vital side. It all the time has been. For those who have a look at the very, very first track from the very first album, in ‘A Fortune In Lies’, I used to be taking part in thrash, double bass, thrash beats proper outta the gate.”
That steel spine has all the time been a part of their DNA, based on Portnoy, even because the band constructed its popularity on progressive complexity. “And we’ve all the time had songs like that, whether or not it’s ‘The Glass Jail’ or ‘Panic Assault’ or ‘A Nightmare To Keep in mind’. It’s been a giant a part of the band’s sound, and, to be sincere, I believe it’s a giant a part of the band’s success.”
Portnoy pointed to the band’s potential to faucet into each the progressive and steel crowds as a key purpose for his or her attain and longevity. “There’s a whole lot of prog bands or prog steel bands which might be nonetheless type of underground and nonetheless play smaller exhibits or possibly don’t promote as many data as a result of possibly they haven’t tapped into the steel facet.”
“However the truth that the steel facet is such a giant, large a part of our sound, I believe, is what elevates Dream Theater to be the cream of the crop by way of ticket gross sales and document gross sales within the prog universe,” he continued. “I believe it’s that steel facet that does it. The truth that we might play these large steel festivals like Aftershock or Louder Than Life or Hellfest or Graspop, the truth that we might pull off gigs like that as a prog steel band speaks so much for that steel facet.”
Regardless of its heavy tone, Parasomnia wasn’t designed to sound that method — it merely advanced in that path. “And when writing Parasomnia, we simply naturally fell into it,” Portnoy defined. “Perhaps it was the darkish material of sleep issues and nightmares and issues like that, possibly that helped us gravitate in direction of it.”
For followers questioning how this new materials stacks up in opposition to the band’s earlier work, Portnoy supplied a transparent comparability: “If I needed to describe Parasomnia, the album, to anyone, I’d say it type of has the darkness and heaviness of Prepare Of Thought with the cinematic method of Scenes From A Reminiscence.”
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