Thursday, January 05, 2006

Dream Theater - Home

If music were sex, this song would be the orgasm. There's something magical and wonderful about the way Dream Theater seamlessly marries two very distinctly different styles of music-- Progressive rock and heavy metal-- in this song.

Part of their 1999 concept album Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory, this song is a piece of a much bigger whole. It's the climax of the tale they're telling through music, but unlike many of the other songs on the album, this song is able to stand alone.

The level of technical proficiency of the 3 former Berklee students (drummer Mike Portnoy, guitarist John Petrucci, and bass player John Myung), 1 former Julliard student (keyboardist Jordan Rudess), and operatically trained lead vocalist James LaBrie is probably more evident on this song than on any other in Dream Theater's long and very accomplished song catalog.

All of the groups I listen to have songs I really love... But there are very few songs that I would use the word "transcendent" on-- Home is one of those few. I don't just love this song for its musical brilliance, I love it because from the first time I heard it, it completely changed the way I listen to music. While I liked Dream Theater before I heard the song-- this was the song that really hit me over the head, turned my musical tastes inside out and made me fall in love with a whole new genre of music I'd never really given a solid chance beforehand.

Home is, in a word, an "eargasm."

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