DREAM THEATER A View From The Top Of The World | Weekly Heavy Metal Album Review

Released by Inside Out Music on October 22th, 2021

Quick Background

The American progressive metal band Dream Theater needs no introduction. As of 2018, they had sold over 12 million records worldwide, and received two Grammy Award nominations. DT is not only one of the creators of progressive metal but also still one of the most popular bands in the genre. While I am not a fan-boy, I do like this band a lot and it's one of my favorite bands of all time. I have all their albums, even though I am not sure why I bought the Astonishing, and I've seen them live a few times. With that said, I can be critical and have high expectations. The Mangini era has been a hit and miss situation for me. But I won't get into the drummer discussion, because that's pointless. It is what it is. 

A View From The Top Of The World

A View from the Top of the World is the fifteenth studio album by Dream Theater and already the fifth one with Mike Mangini on drums who replaced Portnoy in 2010. The albums follows 2019's Distance over Time. This was of course accelerated by the pandemic and cancelled tours. 

A View from the Top of the World brings the band back to very safe territory in which they sound a lot like Scenes from a memory or change of seasons.  This is somewhat a reaction to the previous album where the band wanted to be heavy and concise. This time they allowed their freedom and as a result the new effort is, like the albums before DOT, a long album with only 7 songs but all relatively long. The title track is the epic closer with over 20 minutes in three parts. It is the first epic since "Illumination Theory" from 2013's self-titled album. 

Three singles were released to support A View from the Top of the World: "The Alien" on August 13, 2021, followed a month later by "Invisible Monster" and in October by "Awaken the Master"; each single was accompanied by a music video. The first single is also the album opener "The Alien". An almost 10-min with a heavy intro where the guitar riff and the drumming are the highlights. Later the intensity goes down and we have a beautiful guitar melody before the verse starts. While it all sounds good, it is too familiar, it's almost like a combination of parts from older songs refurbished into a new song. That bothers me and I can't get into this song. Unfortunately that's not the only moment that DT sounds like a copy of themselves on this album. The single "Invisible Monster" with 6:30 is one of the shortest songs on the album. With dynamic verses, engaging bridges and a catchy chorus, this was certainly a good choice for a single. The melodic and mid tempo guitar work is also a nice change of pace. "Awaken The Master", the third single, is the song using the Majesty 8, Petrucci new 8 string signature model. It sounds thick and low end but it's the same riff variations that is repeated all over the album. The keys sound good though, nice piano sound.  

"Answering The Call" while not bringing something new is a song that works for its catchy melodies. "Sleeping Giant" is an OK song with a good instrumental intro but then it falls flat to me and not that interesting. "Transcending Time" is one of the most straightforward songs on the album, around 6:30 minutes, it's mid tempo AOR influenced song. The interesting thing is that it works! At least as an one-off song. It's engaging and fun. Reminds me a bit of 80's Rush, specially due to the guitar arrangements and synths, and for the record, that's a good thing. And of course, the epic title track. A 20-min journey in three parts. This is one of my favorites on the album. It's dynamic and inventive. There is orchestration, other guitar sounds rather than low end riffs full 0000. I like the solos, the slow tempo/ballad section, it all works here.

Final note is that this recording session marked Dream Theater's first collaboration with Andy Sneap, who mastered and mixed the album, having recently worked with Petrucci on his second solo album Terminal Velocity (2020). It's also the first DT album to be recorded in their DTHQ new studio. Needless to say, it sounds awesome. 

The Picky Guy

My biggest problem with this album is that it is basically Dream Theater in auto-pilot. Everything sounds familiar and safe due to many ideas being recycled from previous albums. You can definitely play the game 'spot that riff' or 'arrangement ideas' from previous records. Unfortunately that bothers me and it's a bummer. But I am aware that it won't be a problem for many. Specially the crowed that wants "more of the same". 

Wrap Up Opinion 

I can't say that this is a bad album. Obviously the musicianship as always is exceptional, it's proggy, catchy at times, memorable choruses and also one of their best sounding albums ever. But to me the music writing was disappointing and the overall direction too safe and predictable. That's also why to me it can't be more than good. For those reasons, I am giving it 78/100, a good album, but not at par with most of their incredible discography entries. 

SCORE: 78/100

Genre: Progressive Metal

Released by Inside Out Music on October 22th, 2021

Rating System

99 - 100 Perfect
94 - 98 Excellent
87 - 93 Great
82 - 86 Very Good
77 - 81 Good
66 - 76 Mixed
58 - 65 Bad

wordcount = 892