It was a night in September of 2010, I was wasting my time on Facebook when I suddenly saw a post by Mike Portnoy that said "Sad, So Sad". I entered his page right away and my worst nightmare came true in a second. Mike Portnoy, one of the founding members, and as some may say, the leader of DREAM THEATER has left the band. After that, the band took some time and even made a "reality show" about founding the new drummer. Sometime early in 2011  the news were out, Mike Mangini is the new DREAM THEATER drummer.

As a Fan of DREAM THEATER I was very interested to hear how the band will sound without Mike Portnoy. The first single "On The Backs of Angels "was out and I remember hearing it and thinking that there are things different here. On the other handDREAM THEATER are known for putting out singles that are commercials and not really reflect the sound and the album, but those are catchy and fun to listen to such as "Pull Me Under" or "A Rite Of Passage". However, this one was not it for me even though after a few times of listening, it became one of my favorites.

This time, the band took a musical challenge, the album is an absolute complex, a musical masterpiece if you may.  I mean, DREAM THEATER has always been a complex band but this one have a lot of very complex music. Songs like "Outcry" and "Bridges In The Sky" are just insane and sound a lot like LIQUID TEMPTATION EXPERIMENT tracks with vocals. I think now it's a good time to say that James LaBrie's vocals on this album are amazing. I also had the chance to see them live a few months ago and I must admit that without Portnoy, LaBrie really took the lead and became a real Frontman.

The guitar and keyboards are incredible. Petrucci'ssolo and lead work are just outstanding and showed me that he still has some unique licks under his sleeve. Jordan is crazier than ever as he used an IPad on this one. The songs that I liked less were the Two Ballads "This Is The Life" and "Far From Heaven". Those are great songs but I think that they're not in a right place on the album and kind of cut the vibe. On the other hand " Build Me Up, Break Me Down" shows a new side of DREAM THEATER with more electro sounds and a very modern feel to it.

Now for Mangini. The drumming on the album is amazing, but he didn't contribute to the writing and when he came to record the drums, those were already programmed so I think we'll need to wait for the next one to see if he's more that a great session musician.

The last thing I must say is about the sound. I read and heard about a lot of people saying that the drums are too low in the mix and let me tell you one thing, the drums are fine in the mix listen to a record from 1988 and tell me they're too low! DREAM THEATER is a band that needs to have dynamics in their music and if the drums are loud as hell that is not possible with today's loudness war. Andy Wallace mixing it and Ted Jensen mastering it did a great job on keeping that space and dynamics and also giving every little sound an instrument its space. I mean there's no chance anyone can say now that they can't hear Myung's bass.

Overall it is a great album. I think fans of the band will love it and I think that traditional Metal and Progressive fans in general will love this one as well.