OMG Rediscovering Dream Theater

Man! I had a hankering for some Dream Theater, and the I whipped out a cd in my car that I had put some instrumentals on; Satriani, Vai, Petrucci, some Jeff Loomis, and the quint essential Dream Theater instrumentals Erotomania, overture 1928. I was like God I used to be able to play all this crap!!!! Haven't touched that guitar in a year. So I came home and started listening to Change of Season and The whole Train of Thought album blows my mind, it's so heavy for Dream Theater, I'm glade they made the effort to make a heavier prog rock album.
If you're a true music lover and you've never experienced Dream Theater you don't know what your missing, a band of virtuosos, simply amazing! It's been too long!

 

Yeah any of the early stuff you can't go wrong with. But for specific songs;
-Lines in the Sand (guitar solo in interlude makes me cry everytime, I mean bawl),
-Overture 1928 leads directly into Strange Deja Vu, really the entire Scenes From a Memory album is amazing the whole thing should be listened to from beginning to end to understand the whole story, it's an epic portrait of highs and lows.
-Change of Seasons 21 minutes long, just amazing
-Under a Glass Moon was their break out hit in the mid/early 90's and probably their only song that ever got considerable radio play. From the Images and Words album def softer but amazing, touching, deep.
-As I Am best guitar solo of all time ever! NO JOKE and I have a wide repertoire of musical interests and guitar heroes. The whole Train of Thought Album is a great album if you like heavier stuff.
In the spirit of their Train of Thought album, if you like metal with depth, breath, punch and epic shred/thrash guitar embellishments, check out Jeff Loomis and a band that has really brought thrash and shred back into the new millenium in the spirit of Maiden, Megadeth, and Metallica, check out Trivium. Trivium's "Crusade" album is a "softer" intro to their elements and is a little more main stream focused, their Ascendancy album was their break through album with all the underground elements of a great rising thrash band, but my favorite is their 2008 Shogun album it's a take no prisoners approach to brutal crushing metal with all the shred to boot.
I might also mention John Petrucci (of Dream Theater) has an amazing solo album "Suspended Animation," that I spend the summer of 2008 working on a few songs, I've got the music book to accompany it if anybody's interested. The title track is great, but my favorite has got to be Damage Control, a lot of fun to play too!