The other blog of Miguel Pereira » metropolis 2 http://www.myrotarycar.com/blog The BLOG where technology, music, science & irrelevance all meet and melt Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:56:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 SFAM – Scene One: Regression http://www.myrotarycar.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/13/sfam-scene-one-regression/ http://www.myrotarycar.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/13/sfam-scene-one-regression/#comments Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:26:39 +0000 Miguel Pereira http://www.myrotarycar.com/blog/?p=262 Close your eyes and begin to relax. Take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Concentrate on your breathing. With each breath you become more relaxed. Imagine a brilliant white light above you, focusing on this light as it flows through your body. Allow yourself to drift off as you fall deeper and [...]]]>

Close your eyes and begin to relax. Take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Concentrate on your breathing. With each breath you become more relaxed. Imagine a brilliant white light above you, focusing on this light as it flows through your body. Allow yourself to drift off as you fall deeper and deeper into a more relaxed state of mind. Now as I count backward from ten to one, you will fill more peaceful, and calm. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. You will enter a safe place where nothing can harm you. Five. Four. Three. Two. If at any time you need to come back, all you must do is open your eyes. One.

Scenes From a Memory - Dream Theater

Scenes From a Memory - Dream Theater

As promised earlier, on Slicing & Dicing Part One, this is the second part of my review of Scenes From a Memory (Metropolis 2) of Dream Theater (or SFAM). It would be of importance to note that there might be 13 parts to this series of articles dealing with SFAM and that they might be -as I tend to be- rather dense. So be warned. Now move on, be brave ;o)

Thematically, the albums kicks off with someone being hypnotized -I opened this article with the words spoken by the doctor you will hear throughout the album. Why would someone subdue to such voodoo? Well, maybe our lad wants to quit smoking, or break a phobia to spiders (that would be me, sorry!) but no, our lad is trying to make sense out of his dreams. Nightmares which are haunting him non-stop and are keeping him awake at night.

Musically, on the other hand, Regression starts with a very subdued & soothing ticking clock. And though you can almost feel the tension building on the background -thanks to Jordan Rudess’ crafty use of very sutble synths- you never really expect it. When all of a sudden you are shoved to the next track: Overture. And that is a kick in the nuts -in a good way- that changes pace and tempo completely, and drags you completely into the story.

Stay tuned for the next chapter in my review. And if you haven’t, you might want to read the intro: Scenes From a Memory (Dream Theater): Slicing & Dicing Part One .

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]]> http://www.myrotarycar.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/13/sfam-scene-one-regression/feed/ 0 Scenes From a Memory (Dream Theater): Slicing & Dicing Part One http://www.myrotarycar.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/05/scenes-from-a-memory-dream-theater-slicing-dicing-part-one/ http://www.myrotarycar.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/05/scenes-from-a-memory-dream-theater-slicing-dicing-part-one/#comments Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:35:52 +0000 Miguel Pereira http://www.myrotarycar.com/blog/?p=200

“Summer of 1999 in Argentina. I had just graduated from Highschool, and I felt like I could take on the world…though I didn’t know where or how to start.”

Why am I starting the review of what could possibly be the most meaningful and emotional progressive conceptual album I’ve ever laid my hands [...]]]>

“Summer of 1999 in Argentina. I had just graduated from Highschool, and I felt like I could take on the world…though I didn’t know where or how to start.”

Why am I starting the review of what could possibly be the most meaningful and emotional progressive conceptual album I’ve ever laid my hands on like this? Maybe because it has such deep roots in my transition into adulthood; maybe its due to the fact that it was probably the very first record that I felt helped me connect with others beyond the, up until then, common “listen to this song! It’s so cool!”; maybe because by the time I laid my hands on this masterpiece, I had gotten as close as I had ever been to its central theme in my personal life (no, not murder!); maybe because of all these reasons and many more, which I have yet to admit to myself. But let’s move on for now.

On the surface, and to the unsuspecting eye, Scenes From a Memory might simply be the musical continuum of Metropolis (the 5th song on Dream Theater’s second studio album: Images & Words Dream Theater - Images and Words), dubbed “The Miracle & The Sleeper” -remember those two, as they play a prime role on Scenes From a Memory (from now on, referred to as SFAM for ease of writting). And in a very superficial sense, we could accept that, wrap our gear and be done. But there is no much more creatively and musically contained within the 12 tracks that make Metropolis 2 such a treat, that I feel compelled to try to ellaborate, dissect and analyse each piece of it. Now, I am not superhuman, nor I have an unlimited supply of the time and energy necessary to undertake such endeavour in a single article, but I will try to get it started here and deliver on it as time permits.

Dream Theater – Scenes From a Memory (Metropolis Part 2) (1999) Dream Theater - Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory

  2. Overture 1928
  3. Strange Deja Vu
  4. Through My Words
  5. Fatal Tragedy
  6. Beyond This Life
  7. Through Her Eyes
  8. Home
  9. The Dance of Eternity
  10. One Last Time
  11. The Spirit Carries On
  12. Finally Free

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