Customer Reviews

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

5 star:		(207)
4 star:		(52)
3 star:		(31)
2 star:		(26)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Just recently became a DT fan, An incredible mix of influences to make thier own music. Can't wait to listen to all thier other albums.

Awesome 2 Disc set! The always amazing "The Glass Prison" kicks off the first disc and keeps going strong with "Misunderstood" and "The Great Debate!" The second disc contains one extremely long (42 min) epic taking its name from the title of the CD, which is now easily atop my favourite Dream Theater pieces! If your a Dream Theater fan, buy this CD!!!

If Train of thought is a Metal masterpiece, then this is the crowning jewel of the DT collection. Less Metal songs, and more Alternative rock, every song on this double CD is DTs best work. The Glass Prison is simply awesome, though a little long, Blind Faith, Misunderstood, The Great Debate, and Disappear are all better than anything DT has done before. The Solos put Under a Glass moon to shame.

Disk two is equally brilliant. About to Crash and Solitary shell are bona fide #1 hits. War inside my Head and The test that stumped them all are what Voices should have been. Honestly, Voices is outdated, and need not be a part of DTs catalouge anymore.

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence is a testament to a band that is growing over the years. Buy this over anything else available. Buy this first, as it will live in your record collection until the day you die. Then, when you die, bury it in a mountain cavern so that in 5,000 years, next gen humans discover it and add it to their collection.

This album expresses everything about rock. Dream Theater can express pretty much every mood in music with just five expert musicians. John Petrucci on his guitar blows me every time I listen to his solos. This shoots right up with Scenes from a Memory, equally matched. When I first heard Glass Prison, I thought it was impossible to make such a combination. If you're interested in Dream Theater I recommend this album along with a few others. The guys know how to make a good ballet; they've been doing it for about 12 years. Their technicality and talent is one that's lead them to my absolute favorite band. These guys brought out the way of Metal in this album, including the mixture of soft, hard, and medium level songs. Once again, I highly recommend this album to Metal and Rock fans.

Where do you go? You just made one of the best albums of all time, and for my money THE BEST album DT could ever make, in "Metropolis 2, Scenes from a Memory." It was all an evolution up to the most mighty and magical concept album possible. So what next?

Answer: a near-45-minute-long-song.

When I first heard about it when they were in the studio, I didn't flinch. "Yeah," I thought, "that's all they know how to do and it probably will lack some focus." Nobody can touch them for their virtuosity, but those who've got the Transatlantic, LTE, and Explorers Club stuff are well aware that this family of progrockers doesn't have to work quite as hard as, let's say, Blink 182 or Matchbox 20 (that's my little joke), to bypass radiofriendlyness and do a song that lasts for a half hour or so. I'm all about epics, and GIVEN that the mighty DT's release is guaranteed to squash anything the majority of kids are picking up these days (another little joke, I'm only 23), I'm only finding flaws with DT on the hardest of grading criteria. You'll notice this double set is still an easy 5 stars, according to me. But a 42 minute long song in and of itself isn't immediately guaranteed exemption from scrutiny...

AND...I don't know how they did it, but they did it. The epic 8 movement song is a near masterpiece afterall. ESPECIALLY when held up against Metropolis 2, Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence isn't a whole lot weaker than the former. Still not quite as good, but so much better than I would have thought possible. They really did "do it again."... Again Mike, Jordan, James, and the Johns have the maturity to balance excessive overplaying with songwriting, yielding the ideal scenario from virtuosic performers: strong compositions.

The overture is amazing, quite suited for a filmscore really, but it displays Jordan's multitalented brain, as he doesn't just do a good job playing, but he's got great arranging skills as well! "Goodnight Kiss" is my favorite of the movements, as it is paced perfectly, the timbres are experimental yet not "Ladies and Gentlemen, The 21st Century and Ms. Spears!", and the chords are to die for. It molds slowly into "Solitary Shell," a song that proves good music CAN be catchy, and builds to one of my other favorite moments, a blues-tinged solo from Petrucci that seems to pay homage to Slash and his work in GNR's epic "Coma." Oh so soulful! James's climax at the end is a bit underclimactic after all the buildup (42 minutes for God's sake!) but it doesn't ruin anything either.

Oh, right, the first disc.

Well, to be honest, it's not all that great. If that were all there was, I would be MAJORLY disappointed. Except for a few obvious spots (the last song was defintely inspired by Bartok), there's not a whole lot of creativity or soul, and the recurring theme of mental illness sounds more intellectual than heartfelt. "Glass Prison" really baffled me, as it's a real bad way to lead off the album; lack of originality is bad enough, but to drag it on for too long is even worse. That said, all of the songs on the first disc are still good, just not like the level of DT one would have been hoping for.

Nonetheless, I am very amazed at how good and relevent this whole offering turned out, especially given the shoes of 3 years back that had to continue to be filled. Also this band is extremely patient and humble. They aren't clamoring for mainstream success, but they wouldn't mind it either. In another 10 years, maybe enough people will know them so they will debut PAST the 40's (where this one was)! If anyone deserves mass recognition, it's Dream Theater. But either way, in a world of so much turmoil, things are looking up; good music is alive and well.

Ooh ooh my turn to rate this album.

Basically for this album it all comes down to the 2nd disc. Oh sure there might be a few times where it can become rather awesome on the first disc (what I'm thinking is John Myung's glass prison) anywho 2nd disc is what I got this for and I don't regret this buy!

Dream Theater has never quite matched the heights they achieved with the classic "Images & Words" from over a decade ago. The closest they came, according to most fans, was "Scenes from a Memory", the album before this offering.

Enter "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence". An eclectic mix of songs, to say the least. The album opens with a progressive metal masterpiece, "The Glass Prison". This is arguably Dream Theater's greatest purely metal song, with great riffs, varied and interesting progression, and a heaviness seldom found in the band's work.

The other songs on the first disc of this two-CD album don't quite equal the opening track. They represent a competent if somewhat uninspired effort, and while they get tiresome after awhile, are still excellent songs. This first disc suffers a little from "wankfest syndrome", in that it does contain long, uninspired instrumental sections in some places. The best example of this is the outro of "Misunderstood", which essentially degenerates into Petrucci messing around with his wah pedal and seeing what kind of cool sounds he can make with his guitar. A shameful conclusion to an otherwise excellent song.

The second disc is much better. The songwriting is mostly tight, and it definitely sticks to a theme while remaining varied and interesting. It's hard to pick stand-out tracks, because all but "Overture" and "Goodnight Kiss" are outstanding. It's not quite as good as "Scenes from a Memory", but the 45-minute 'song' (I say this skeptically because though it's organized as a medley, each track is clearly its own song) represents powerful and intelligent music that doesn't forsake emotions as some prog-metal bands--including Dream Theater itself, at times--do.

Overall, "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" is uneven at times, but a worthy album nonetheless. This is Dream Theater through-and-through, and serious complaints as to its quality are unfounded. Get this CD, but only after you pick up "Images & Words" and "Scenes from a Memory".

i'm not a great fan of regular DT so when they have come up up with this album i started to like them much more and they have become one of my favorite bands. The only thing that i don't like is that it could have been a single cd. I liked only a half of the second cd. The overture with it's stupid hymn-like music makes me want to puke. it's not talented music comparing to what dream theater did on the first cd. The Glass Prison is probably one of the best they have ever done and so is The Great Debate. And the soft Dissappear is a great finish for this cd. they could have taken War Inside My Head and About to Crash from the second cd and leave it at that but such great songs as the ones from the first cd make up for the second cd crap.

I liked "Six Degrees" but it just did not serve up to some of DT's prior albums like "Scenes from a Memory" or "Awake." My biggest complaint is that there are too many disappointing songs offsetting the great songs on the album. "Glass Prison" is an amoazing opening song but "Blind Faith" is only ok. I liked the voice overs on the "Great Debate A lot" and think the general messages for all of the songs be it alcoholism or politically dirven. The second disc is really one long song in 8 parts and it is a great song showing off all aspect of the bands talents: labrie's singing, Petrucci's guitar, the keyboarder, and even Portney's drumming. Overall this is a really good album. It definitely heads a bit away from the softer tone of "Scenes from a Memory" and is more comprable to "A Change of Seasons" and as always DT makes sure to deliver a quality product for its growing fan base.

This album showcases all the musical sides of Dream Theater. Disc 1 contains 5 brilliant yet completely different progressive tracks and Disc 2 contains the 42 minute epic title track, immense!