Dream Theater Albums Ranked — An In Depth Analysis Into the Prog Metal Overlords
Dream Theater, to me at least, is without a doubt the current leader of progressive metal. I mean sure, you’ve got bands like Periphery and Porcupine Tree, and yes, Dream Theater has been going at it for an impressive 38 years now, but their quality still exceeds that many prog-rockers from the past and present. Sure, perhaps they were at their finest in the 90s, and sure the quality of their modern live performances have come into question every now and then, but with 2021’s A View From the Top of the World, Dream Theater has shown that they’ve still got it. And with Mike Portnoy’s recent(ish) return to the band, the core three — Portnoy, John Petrucci, and John Myung — is back in business!
To celebrate Prog Metal’s biggest force returning to their classic form, I will be ranking all 15 of Dream Theater’s studio albums, from 1989–2021. Obviously demo tapes like 1986’s The Majesty Demos will not be counted, nor live releases, and I will not be counting the 1995 A Change of Seasons EP, even if side one is some of DT’s greatest work. Without further ado, let’s delve deep into Prog Metal’s greatest force!
15 — When Dream And Day Unite (1989)
Best song: Afterlife
Worst song: Light Fuse And Get Away
It’s not that 1989’s When Dream And Day Unite is a bad album, it’s just Dream Theater’s least good one. There is enjoyment to be had with this album, with tracks like Afterlife, Ytse Jam, and A Fortune In Lies, but this album suffers in many regards. It’s poor production is probably the most objective critique, particularly for a band known for great production, and particularly since their next effort, 1991’s Images and Words, has phenomenal production. This was also Dream Theater’s only album with vocalist Charlie Dominici, who was replaced by James LaBrie soon after this album’s release.
Charlie Dominici: a talented singer who was not the right fit for a group like Dream Theater, and his later solo efforts were pretty good records. He never disassociated with his former band members, staying in contact with them, and even fronting the band that played at drummer Mike Portnoy’s wedding. Charlie Dominici sadly passed away suddenly in October of 2023 at the age of 72. Rest in Peace man.
When Dream and Day Unite is flawed in many regards, but it’s not a bad album whatsoever. There is enjoyment to be had, and it is certainly an outlier in Dream Theater’s discography, but it’s certainly not my favourite.
14 — Falling into Infinity (1997)
Best song: Lines in the Sand
Worst song: Burning My Soul
I don’t really care much for this album. It’s one of Dream Theater’s stranger releases, just because of how… not heavy… it is. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, there are many instances of bands ‘going soft’ and it works, but this album is just so… weird.
There are gems in the package; Hollow Years, Lines in the Sand, Peruvian Skies and Trial of Tears to name a few, and the production on the album is decent, and I appreciate hearing Derek Sherinian in his only Dream Theater studio album (A Change of Seasons doesn’t count, although it is fantastic), but I never really feel the need to listen to this album ever again.
13 — Dream Theater (2013)
Best song: The Enemy Inside
Worst song: The Looking Glass
Out of all the albums to ever exist, Dream Theater’s 2013 self-titled album is certainly one of them. It does exist. I put it higher than the previous two albums, because while it’s inferior in many aspects (and it’s probably the last one I’d listen to start-to-finish), it also has a song as good as The Enemy Inside. That song rules, and I revisit it constantly. I also think the 22-minute finale Illumination Theory is a great rock opera. The problem is, I don’t care for much else on the album. I like the False Awakening Suite for it’s relieving short-and-sweet nature, I guess I enjoy Enigma Machine, but that’s about it.
The production of this album also isn’t my favourite. This is when John Petrucci started using Mark V’s (the supreme amp), and I like how the guitars, bass, vocals, and keys sound as always, but my main gripe with the production is the drums. It’s overproduced, and that snare especially is insanely gated. To quote a friend of mine when we were talking about this album, this album has a sort of ‘yucky modern metal sound’.
Still, the highlights on this album are strong, but the other five songs on the album is just sort of forgettable.
12 — Distance Over Time (2019)
Best song: Paralyzed
Worst song: S2N
I quite like Distance Over Time. When it came out, it was sort of a relief, because it was a return to form. And, as much as I enjoy The Astonishing, I’m glad that this album was less ambitious, because I feel like that’s what the band were needing. After the ambitious 34-track conceptual piece that was The Astonishing, the band opted to create a more ‘tight and focused’ piece, and Distance Over Time is exactly that. It doesn’t even have one 20, 15, hell, 10 minute suite (9:20 is less than 10 minutes!).
I think the one aspect this album suffers from is that is simpler than what Dream Theater are used to, which can really be felt on tracks like S2N and Room 137. Still, the brilliant guitar and keyboard work of Untethered Angel, the haunting vocals and instrumentals in Paralyzed, and the progressive, heavy suite that is At Wit’s End are certainly highlights.
Distance Over Time is a great return to formula for a band who were in a strange spot at the time.
11 — Systematic Chaos (2007)
Best song: In the Presence of Enemies — Part I
Worst song: Prophets of War
Man, this one hurts. This is the first album on this list that I really enjoy, but from an objective standpoint, it’s got some duds, the flow is questionable, and Mike Portnoy’s co-lead vocals stick out like a sore thumb in Prophets of War.
Both parts of In the Presence of Enemies are epic, Ministry of Lost Souls is beautiful, Repentance is a great continuation of the AA suite, and Dark Eternal Night is very cool, but then there is a song like Prophets of War, which is straight up bad; an extreme rarity in the band’s discography. It was decent until Mike Portnoy’s rap part, and the other songs on this album are sort of forgettable. And yes, there a minor part of the album, but I find the album overall to not flow as well as other albums, and I don’t really like Portnoy’s vocal contributions, of which there are a few.
And even though this album has a special place in my heart, it hurts me to leave it out of the top 10.
10 — The Astonishing (2016)
Best song: Dystopian Overture
Worst song: All of the NOMAC instrumentals, but they’re pretty short anyways.
Where to even begin with this 4LP conceptual, orchestral chapter of prog history?
The Astonishing is a 34-track concept album (clocking out at 130:29) accompanied by an orchestra and a few different choirs. It’s set in a dystopian United States and it follows the Ravenskill Rebel Militia’s pursuit to defeat the evil Great Northern Empire with the power of music. Is it pretentious? Yes. Is it awesome? Absolutely.
This album by far the most polarising album in Dream Theater’s discography. You either enjoyed it, or you really hated it. In fact, there’s a YouTube channel by the name of the Ravenskill Rebel Militia run by someone who absolutely hates Dream Theater, and the entire purpose of this channel is too criticise modern Dream Theater by using basic points as ‘vocal bad’ among other stupid things. It’s as weird as it sounds!
When I listened to The Astonishing, I did it in one take, just for you guys! I mean sure, I had it on in the background while playing through Super Mario Bros. Wonder on the Nintendo Switch, so I probably wasn’t as immersed as the album demanded, but whatever, I got the basic idea (big evil guy is defeated by rebel guy whose wife died, and rebel guy uses the power of music; how wonderful). I should probably read the novel adaptation.
The Astonishing probably peaks at the beginning with songs like Dystopian Overture, The Gift of Music, and, Lord Nafaryus, but that’s not to say there aren’t quality tracks throughout, like The X-Aspect, Our New World, and Astonishing. And yes, the NOMAC instrumentals are boring as hell, good thing their only about a minute each, and yes, there are parts of this album that are slow and a bit of a slog to get through, and yes, the album is bloody long. 2h and 10m is a feat that not even Tool have accomplished yet (perhaps an edit would have been nice)! But I enjoyed listening to this pantheon of operatic, orchestral, and bombastic pieces. Although I don’t see myself listening to this again in it’s entirety any time soon.
9 — Octavarium (2005)
Best song: Octavarium
Worst song: Never Enough
Well, well well, here is where I start to lose people on this ranking, but these next few records are very hard to rank, so forgive me if my opinion is wrong.
We’re getting into the really good stuff now. Dream Theater’s Octavarium is an interesting kind of concept album. Drummer Mike Portnoy, in a video on his YouTube channel, described this album as being a concept album ‘in the same way that Dark Side of the Moon is a concept album’, but Octavarium is a one of a kind creation.
It uses the musical concept of an octave; it starts out with The Root of All Evil the key of F, then The Answer Lies Within in G, followed by These Walls in A, and so on. Then when you get to the 25 minute title track, it’s back in G. One of my favourite things about the concept is how The Root of All Evil is part of Mike Portnoy’s AA Suite (more on that in Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence), so it fits into both concepts: It’s the root note, as well as part of the AA suite. That just seems really cool.
The album’s title track Octavarium is an atmospheric and philosophical venture, and the album ends where it started; the key of F. The track is not just about this idea, but it’s a metaphor describing life as a cycle; the protagonist always ends up where he began. Like a metal version of Groundhog Day. At least that’s my interpretation.
Highlights on this record for me include The Root of All Evil, These Walls, Panic Attack, Sacrificed Sons, and the epic title track, Octavarium. The latter two are among my favourite DT songs of all time. The one thing that kept me from ranking this album higher is that I don’t really remember much of the other four tracks.
8 — A Dramatic Turn of Events
Best song: Bridges in the Sky
Worst song: Build Me Up, Break Me Down
This album is a strange one for me. 2011’s A Dramatic Turn of Events was Dream Theater’s first album after Mike Portnoy’s departure. After a series of auditions, documented on video, with many great drummers (including Melbourne’s own Virgil Donati! Go Australia!) the band eventually selected Mike Mangini, who had previously worked with Extreme, Annihilator, Steve Vai, and even Dream Theater’s James LaBrie, before teaching at the Berkeley College of Music in Boston, where Petrucci, Myung, and Portnoy had attended during the mid-80s.
The band were in a tricky spot at this point. Things were changing; for Dream Theater, a new decade meant a new era. Even when former keyboardist Kevin Moore’s departed the group, and then when Derek Sherinian left after a brief stint, the band hadn’t quite gone through this. Portnoy had been in the group since the group was named Majesty in 1985!
Luckily, Mangini is an absolute killer drummer, and this album is great way to return. On another listen through, unfortunately, it came to my attention about a quarter through, that the mix on this album… isn’t as good as I remember. But whatever, the album is still cool.
Highlights for me include On the Backs of Angels, Lost Not Forgotten, Bridges in the Sky, and Breaking All Illusions. All the songs on this album exhibit some kind of memorable quality, even a song as cheesy, and attempted Nu-Metal-y as Build Me Up, Break Me Down can be (and it is), there is still enjoyment to be had.
This album is one of the better Mangini-era albums, and it was a phenomenal introduction for the drummer.
7 — A View From the Top of the World
Best song: The Alien
Worst song: Answering the Call
And we arrive at the final Mangini album, not only of the list, but in the discography. This right here is Mangini’s legacy. I love Portnoy, and it’s bittersweet seeing him come back. Both drummers are just as great as each other, and those who say that Mangini’s robotic or not as good as Portnoy, look no further than The Alien!
All of the songs on this album are really cool, and they explore more trivial themes at times — like the idea of the early childhood fear of a monster under the bed in Invisible Monster, or literally just an alien in The Alien — but I still really enjoy the conceptually fanciful work that is A View From the Top of the World. And it’s the album that one the group their first GRAMMY® award for the song The Alien. This album is also John Petrucci’s first use of an eight string, in which he uses a beautiful colour-changing (look it up) Music Man Majesty.
With heavy riffs, emotive solos, brilliant drumming, awesome bass lines, and the classic prog-metal vocals we’ve come to expect, the album exceeded expectations from the get-go. It really feels as it Mike Mangini was honouring the late great Neil Peart on this album. Some parts felt like Neil Peart was reborn on this release. Particularly with Trancending Time, that’s practically a Rush song in disguise.
With a really strong tracklist, a good mix, great instrumentals, and great vocals, this album is a poetic finale to the Mangini era, and I’m excited to see what Dream Theater will do with Portnoy, and I’m also excited to see what Mangini does in the future also (he just released a solo album called Invisible Signs and it happens to be pretty ripper, I’d recommend DT fans ought to check it out).
6 — Black Clouds and Silver Linings
Best song: The Count of Tuscany
Worst song: Wither
Black Clouds and Silver Linings is one of the more interesting pieces in Dream Theater’s discography for me, because of how raw it reads as, and not only in it’s lyrical contents, and it’s epic production.
The band’s idea for this album was to write something more real. The album opens up with A Nightmare to Remember, which is a song about a terrible childhood family car accident John Petrucci had experienced, and he details his father being badly injured, and waking up in the hospital, and the song has some amazing lyrical work. Songs like Wither and The Best of Times continue this theme with former being written about creative burnout and the latter about the death of Mike Portnoy’s father. Both those songs, particularly the latter one, have excellent lyrics. And if you’re wondering what happened in Tuscany in the final song, John Petrucci ended up meeting the Count of Tuscany, after being invited to the castle by a friend of his in the winemaking business. The song was piece about Petrucci’s slightly weird experience in that castle, and it’s a magnificent piece of mostly-fictitious-non-fiction. It has some amazing guitar solos as well.
Petrucci details the writing process of this album in this interview with Loudwire.
We’re at the point where every song is a highlight, but I’ll point out a couple: The Shattered Fortress is a great finale to the AA Suite
Black Clouds and Silver Linings is a heavy piece for the band, and it was the final Dream Theater album before Mike Portnoy’s departure, until he came back in 2023. It’s a phenomenal piece, and all of the songs are fantastic.
5 — Train of Thought (2003)
Best song: As I Am
Worst song: Vacant
Train of Thought is probably the heaviest album of Dream Theater’s entire discography. Particularly in the opener As I Am, which starts out with bass harmonics, a slow intro with an crushing guitar tone, and bombastic drums, before inevitably speeding up. The average Train of Thought riff can certainly be compared to that of a Pantera riff. It’s probably Dream Theater’s most accessible album to the common rock/metal listener. Even before my prog days, As I Am would certainly come up in a shuffle list with Metallica, Slayer, and Iron Maiden. The songs are still very long (although Vacant is deceptively short), but this album is clearly inspired by the likes of thrash metal bands of the past, and nu-metal bands of the time. Though it still retains the awesome level of production Dream Theater are known for.
Like with Black Clouds and Silver Linings, every song on this LP is a highlight, but I’ll name a few super — highlights: As I Am has gone through my ears hundreds of times by now, This Dying Soul is a fantastic second part to the AA suite, and Honor Thy Father is beyond incredible.
Train of Thought, while still progressive, is more mainstream with heavier songs and thrash and nu-metal inspiration, and it’s grown to become one of my favourites.
4 — Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (2002)
Best Song: Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (if you don’t count that, then Solitary Shell)
Worst Song: Blind Faith
I absolutely love this album! It’s a touch divisive among DT fans, maybe that’s because it’s a bit drenched in Rush, but it’s still an awesome album.
So, this is the album that started the Alcohol Anonymous Suite, also known as the 12-Step Suite or the AA suite, and since we’re at the first of it, I’ll explain what it is. So it consists of 5 tracks, with 12 parts, representing the 12-steps, and it’s drummer Mike Portnoy’s autobiographical recount of his alcohol abuse, and his experience getting sober. He’s been sober over 20 years now, and he’ll never read this, but congrats Mike! The courage to battle such demons, and use these traumatic experiences as an opportunity for art is an extremely honourable thing. So The Glass Prison has the first three parts, and this carried on through 5 albums, and I’ll use a table from Wikipedia to show, because it’s a long story.
This album has some incredible tracks on disc one — The Glass Prison, Misunderstood, and Disappear to name a few — but disc two is the title track, epic forty-minute suite, divided up into eight movements, and it’s incredible. It’s in the running for my favourite Dream Theater song, and it’s astounding. They even performed it live with an orchestra in the Score Live Album/DVD at the prestigious Radio City Music Hall.
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence is a phenomenal experience that has grown to become one of my favourite Dream Theater works of all time. And it almost breaks my top 3. Almost.
3 — Awake (1994)
Best Song: Erotomania
Worst Song: Space-Dye Vest
The moment you hear that gated reverb on Mike Portnoy’s drums, followed by the pure badass-ary of Kevin Moore’s electric organ sound, you know you’re in for a ride.
Awake is the end of an era for the group: the Kevin Moore era. Jordan Rudess is my favourite Dream Theater keyboardist — the guy’s a beast — but there’s something so Keith Emerson-esque about his composition ability. And I think this album is James LaBrie at his best as a vocalist. This was just before the food poisoning incident which ruptured his vocal chords, so, that’s sort of expected. Not that he isn’t fantastic on… say… Train of Thought — in fact, the way he taught himself how to sing again seems quite admirable — but he’s at his best here.
This is also John Petrucci’s first foray into extended range guitars, with him using a seven string for a couple songs, most notable Lie and The Mirror.
All of the songs on this album are brilliant, but my absolute favourites include The Mirror, Erotomania, 6:00, Lie, Caught in a Web, and Innocence Faded. Awake may seem slightly imperfect in some regards, but the astounding production, brilliant composition, excellent instrumentation, and flawless vocals is what makes it rank so high on my list.
2 — Images and Words (1992)
Best song: Under a Glass Moon
Worst song: None of them; they’re all great
How about this album for an absolute classic? So few albums have been as influential to the genre as Images and Words.
I know, some fans will argue it’s their best work, and it switches places with no. 1 every now and then, but it’s freakin’ close.
This album’s production is absolutely beautiful. Produced by David Prater, the second verse of Under a Glass Moon is bound to make any engineer cry.
The instrumentation on this album is phenomenal, and it’s what gave John Petrucci his rightful reputation as an absolute shred-lord. This is the first album with current Dream Theater vocalist James LaBrie, and he asserts his dominance as the band’s voice, particularly in a song like Pull Me Under. And all of the instrumentalists shine in Metropolis — Pt. 1: “The Miracle and the Sleeper”, after the fairly simple verses with James LaBrie’s powerful vocals, there is a long jam section, like 21st Century Schizoid Man by King Crimson, but instead of Jazz, the jam section is pure metal. Shining moments include Kevin Moore being awesome, John Petrucci absolutely shredding, Mike Portnoy going at it, and John Myung’s ridiculously cool dual-handed tapping bass solo. They actually added that ‘Pt. 1’ as an inside joke, and also as a nod to Rush compositions with multiple parts, like Cygnus X — 1. They were originally never going to do a part two, and well, they certainly did.
My favourite song from this is Under a Glass Moon. Some of the greatest guitar tones ever known to man, with that distortion, and the wonderful harmonic cleans, that random sweepy part at the beginning, and the iconic solo.
I could rave on about Images and Words until the next ice age, but I’ll keep it concise, sort of. But what could have made number one? If I adore this album so, what could eclipse that in my mind? DRUMROLL PLEASE-!!!
1 — Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory (1999)
Best song: All of them
Worst song: None of them
At⠀the dawn of the new millennium, Dream Theater showed the world their dominance, particularly after the not-so-successful 1997 release Falling into Infinity. Drummer Mike Portnoy on his YouTube channel likened the band’s situation to that of Rush’s famous Caress of Steel — 2112 creation: solving over-ambition with more ambition!
Metropolis, Pt. 2 (which I’m obviously going to call it for short) is a concept album, which follows the protagonist named Nicholas, and the person he was in his past life was a woman involved in a love triangle with two brothers that ends up in her murder, so a hypnotist (voiced by legendary Rush producer Terry Brown) helps him find answers, so classic drama stuff, but with a weird time travel element. Metropolis, Pt. 2 is a very loose sequel, and the only real similarities are the characters. Pt. 2 ends up being a much more interesting piece.
Composition and production wise, this album is by far their best in my opinion. This album is keyboardist Jordan Rudess’ first work with the group. He was in an on-off (technically still active) supergroup called Liquid Tension Experiment with drummer Mike Portnoy, guitarist John Petrucci, and Peter Gabriel / King Crimson bassist Tony Levin before Dream Theater, and he became a full time member soon after Derek Sherinian’s departure.
Every track is absolutely phenomenal on this album, but if I were to make a top five, in no particular order, it would most likely be: Fatal Tragedy, Strange Deja Vu, Overture 1928, Dance of Eternity, and Finally Free. Actually, I’ll add a sixth, still in no particular order, The Spirit Carries On. And yes, a song which has a Christian take on things is interesting to put in an album about reincarnation, but it’s still a brilliant song.
So yeah, it could Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory is the most influential progressive metal album of all time. In my first listen, I wasn’t focused on the story, but the instrumentals, but then I grew to appreciate the story on future listens, even if it’s told extremely vaguely.
The instrumentals, the vocals, the production; if you choose a random song on the album, it’s most likely going to be bloody ripper.
Conclusion
And that’s every single Dream Theater album ranked. Dream Theater is a very influential band to me. As a fairly amateur guitarist it’s impossible not to appreciate the work of the two Johns; Petrucci and Myung on guitar and bass respectively.
Throughout nearly 40 years, with different lineups, different innovations, even different band names (they were Majesty at one point), and each member deserves their due credit. So I think it’s pretty safe to say that Dream Theater is the biggest force in progressive metal right now, and possibly ever.
