Train of Thought (Dream Theater album)

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Train of Thought
Train of Thought cover
Studio album by Dream Theater
Released November 11, 2003
Recorded March - April, 2003 - Cove City Sound Studios and Pie Studios, New York
Genre Progressive Metal
Length 69:24
Label Elektra Records
Producer(s) Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci
Professional reviews
Dream Theater chronology
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
(2002)		 Train of Thought
(2003)		 Live at Budokan
(2004)


Train of Thought is the seventh full-length studio album by progressive metal band Dream Theater. Aiming for a straightforward metal record influenced by the response of their heavier songs while on tour (also likely to be influenced by their live full-album covers of Metallica's Master of Puppets and Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast), it is widely considered their heaviest album to date, with some even calling it the "heavy album". The heavy composition has left many of their fans divided. Some veteran fans of the band prefer the more progressive sound heard in previous albums such as Images and Words and Awake. However, newer fans tend to like Dream Theater's heavier side a bit more. Regardless, the album was fairly well-received.

Contents

[edit] Track listing

  1. "As I Am" – 7:47 (music by Dream Theater, lyrics by Petrucci)
  2. "This Dying Soul" – 11:28 (Dream Theater, Portnoy)
    • "IV. Reflections of Reality (Revisited)"
    • "V. Release"
  3. "Endless Sacrifice" – 11:23 (Dream Theater, Petrucci)
  4. "Honor Thy Father" – 10:14 (Dream Theater, Portnoy)
  5. "Vacant" – 2:58 (Rudess/Myung, LaBrie)
  6. "Stream of Consciousness" – 11:16 (Dream Theater, instrumental)
  7. "In The Name of God" – 14:16 (Dream Theater, Petrucci)

[edit] Personnel

[edit] Miscellanea

  • The album was written in three weeks.[1]
  • The Chant/Hymn at the end of "In the Name of God" is the American civil war hymn "Battle Hymn of the Republic".
  • "Honor Thy Father" was written about Mike Portnoy's step-father. When asked about what inspired him to write that song, he stated in an IRC chat: "I'm not very good at writing love songs, so I decided to write a HATE song!!!"[2]
  • Between 05:51 and 06:07 of the song "In the Name of God", there was a hidden composition buried beneath the far louder sounds of the song itself which lay undiscovered for over a year and a half. The band did not tell anyone that a hidden "nugget" (as it became known amongst Dream Theater fans) was present in the song, and only when Mike Portnoy mentioned it in his Mike Portnoy: Live at Budokan Drum-Cam DVD over a year later did someone find it. The Mike Portnoy message board was rife with fans scouring the song looking for what it might be, until a fan going by the pseudonymous name "DarrylRevok" mentioned that from 05:51 to 06:07 there appeared to be morse code audible, which Nick Bogovich (user handle "Bogie") isolated and discovered that when translated to English, the phrase "eat my ass and balls" (a Mike Portnoy catchphrase) was the result.[3]
  • There are some obvious connections to the previous and following albums of the band:
    • The album has seven songs, while its predecessor (Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence) has six and its successor (Octavarium) has eight.
    • The first song "As I Am" starts with the ending synth/orchestral chord of SDoIT and the ending piano note (F) of "In the Name of God" is the first note of Octavarium's "The Root of All Evil".
    • "This Dying Soul" continues Mike Portnoy's Alcoholics Anonymous-suite, started with SDoIT's "The Glass Prison" and later continued with Octavarium's "The Root of All Evil". The songs share some of the lyrics and melodies.
  • In "This Dying Soul" starting at 7:15, the riff and vocal delivery bears striking resemblances to the verse of Metallica's Blackened. Whether this is intentional or not is yet to be confirmed.
  • Some of the lyrics to "In the Name of God" seem to refer to David Koresh and the Branch Davidians.
  • The album contains the most vulgarities in a Dream Theater album to date with 4 (which is much fewer than on many contemporary albums).
  • Stream of Consciousness is the longest Dream Theater instrumental to date (not counting live mash-ups such as Instrumedley).
  • "Honor Thy Father" includes sample sounds from the film Magnolia.
  • The opening riff of "As I Am" is almost identical to the riff from the Corrosion of Conformity song ""These Shrouded Temples..." which opens the album Blind.

[edit] Confusion with Superior's Younique

Around 2003, when Train of Thought was released, in many file sharing networks, Superior's album Younique was released as Train of Thought; Superior's music is very similar to Dream Theater's, which only made things more confusing. And because Train of Thought has only seven tracks, Younique was cut between tracks 7 and 8, resulting in a release with 7 tracks. Unfortunately, many Dream Theater fans that have downloaded "wrongful Train of Thought" album think to this day that Younique is the real Train of Thought album. [citation needed]

[edit] Chart performance

  • Billboard 200: Train of Thought - #53
  • Billboard Top Internet Albums: Train of Thought - #53

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ The writing of Train of Thought
  2. ^ You can read the chat log excerpt at DTFAQ.com.
  3. ^ Read the complete story behind the nugget at DTFAQ.com
Dream Theater
James LaBrie | John Myung | John Petrucci | Mike Portnoy | Jordan Rudess
Chris Collins | Charlie Dominici | Kevin Moore | Derek Sherinian
Discography
Albums and extended plays: When Dream and Day Unite | Images and Words | Awake | A Change of Seasons | Falling into Infinity | Scenes from a Memory | Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence | Train of Thought | Octavarium
Live albums: Live at the Marquee | Once in a LIVEtime | Live Scenes from New York | Live at Budokan | Score
Videos and DVDs: Images and Words: Live in Tokyo | 5 Years in a Livetime | Metropolis 2000: Scenes from New York | Live at Budokan | Score
Songs: Pull Me Under | Another Day | A Mind Beside Itself | The Glass Prison | Stream of Consciousness | Instrumedley
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