Every album from this super-band is long awaited by the majority of the metal community, and every album of theirs passes in front of the microscopes of both the fans and the reviewers. And so we will pass it ourselves here!
I won't tire you with all those boring details, and I'll try to keep into the subject. First of all very few people deny Dream Theater's musicianship, and once again they prove it to us. But forget all those long guitar/keyboard solos and drum or bass show-offs that many people have accused Dream Theater of doing. All songs are quite minimalistic if you compare them to others. So what do they play now? Well, that's a good point. The 2 CD set has 6 songs, or entities I'd say, that are completely separate and different between them, with almost all of them varying a lot from what Dream Theater used to play.
The opening track, The Glass Prison is by far the heaviest and grooviest songs they've ever released, which some people accused of Dream Theater copying Tool (nonsense in my opinion!). Blind Faith follows in the queue, a song reminding me a lot of the Awake era, a pure progressive metal song. The next three songs, Misunderstood, The Great Debate and Disappear, are the most innovative ones; with Disappear being the most unusual song I've ever heard by Dream Theater. A calm prog-rock song with many Radiohead-like touches. The album closes with the 42-minute title-track (which is in 8 separate parts). Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence brings in mind Metropolis Part II a lot, sharing many common elements, but innovative enough not permitting of someone accusing Dream Theater for copying themselves.
With about 100 minutes of quality musicianship AND music, 6 Degrees Of Inner Turbulence stands out as one of the best albums (if not the best) released in the first part of 2002, justifying why they are considered one of the leading metal bands in our times. A complete album that will surely content their fans, and bring new ones into their legions! All hail Dream Theater!!!