Tenth studio album from probably the biggest and most popular prog rock band in the world today and the follow-up to their 2007 Roadrunner debut 'Systematic Chaos'. Like that album, this release accentuates their metallic side with chunky, dense riffing. However, the band have not forgotten their roots, and their trademark guitar and keyboard prog pyrotechnics and monumental song lengths are all present and correct.

Apr 2009

'Black Clouds & Silver Linings' marks another milestone on Dream Theater’s iconoclastic musical journey, which began two and a half decades ago and now encompasses a hugely impressive body of music that's established the durable progressive metal outfit as a one-of-a-kind creative force with a fiercely devoted international fan base. The new album features a pair of concise numbers, 'A Rite of Passage' and 'Wither', along with four longer pieces that exemplify the band’s knack for extended, multi-part epics. Those tracks— 'A Nightmare to Remember', 'The Shattered Fortress', 'The Best Of Times' and the near-20-minute album-closer 'The Count of Tuscany' —showcase the compositional complexity, instrumental expertise and emotional immediacy for which the quintet has become known, along with spacious, crystalline production that emphasizes the sonic nuances of the band's playing and arrangements.

• Metal Hammer - "...this is Dream Theater's finest and most balanced album in a decade. If SYSTEMATIC CHAOS helped them to partially lose the cult band tag, then BLACK CLOUDS AND SILVER LININGS with surely take them to the next level"

Personnel: James LaBrie (vocals); John Petrucci (guitars); Jordan Rudess (keyboards); John Myung (bass instrument); Mike Portnoy (drums).

Dream Theater may not have been the very first to combine heavy metal's biting guitars with progressive rock's complex structures and virtuosi displays, but they were certainly at the vanguard of the prog-metal paradigm in the late '80s. By the '90s, they had become the definitive avatars of the genre. They were also the nexus for numerous prog supergroup offshoots, such as Transatlantic, Liquid Tension Experiment, and Explorers Club.