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THEY STAND alone.Unique in their quest formusical perfection.Dream Theater h.ave no.boundaries. Their frontierterminates at the ~~ge ofinfinity. Not surprisingly, .yours truly ~as taken to thisband like a fish to water.They remind me of wonderfullycomplex '70s acts such as KingCrimson, Emerson Lake AndPalmer, Pavlov's Dog andBadger.Th ey have also drawninspiration from such complexMetal acts as Rush, Kansas, DixieDre gs and, unbelievably,Quee nsryche.'When Dream And Day Unite',the Drea m Theater debut, is afascinating record. That th ere hasbeen nothing similar to itreleased in the last 10 yearsmakes it even more spectacular.Their musical ability ifau ltless, they attempt rhythmsthat I previously thou~ht neverexisted - drummer Mike Portnoyis seri ousl/{ shaping up to snatchthe crown of Neil Peart,That th ey are as heavy as hellgoes without saying. WithPortnoy's fierce drulT)tning andbass ist John Myung laying downa concrete hard foundation, theguita r and 'keyboard 'nterp!a'i ofJohn Petmcci and Keyin Mooretake matters into a Techno Metalpa radi se.Best of all, however, are theintense vocal gymnastics ofsing er Ch arlie Dominici, who caneasily be cbmpared to aspectacular combination of SteveWalsh (Kansas), 6eoffT-ate­(Queensryche) and Geddy Lee(Rush).IN 1985, WHILST studying attheworld famous Berkeley collegeof music in Boston, threestudents - that's John Petrucci ,John Myung and Mike Portnoy ­formed an embryonic rock 'n' rolltrio call ed Majesty.Convinced that a career in rock'n' roll was the thing for th em,they returned, in December ofthat year, to their homes in LongIsland and commenced a longand arduous quest to find acompetent keyboa rd player.They eventually commissionedKevin Moore, an old friend of th eband, who fitted their uniquestyle like a drea m come tru e.Th e search w as now on, ofcourse, for a suitable vocalist.After initially securing th eservices of a ch ap called ChrisCollins, in th e Autumn of 1987 hewas replaced by cu rrent singerCharlie Dominici. ,Thus Majesty lockedthemselves away and rehea rsedreligiously, undertaking the oddgig but concentratinQ in the mainon making their musIc the Illestthat it could be.'Fney even recorded what theynow view as a rather primitivesOl!Jnding fou r-track demo wh ichgarnered them solid fan interestin 'Germany. The first run of 1000cassettes sold out within a fewweeks IAs he band increased their fanfollowing they suddenly beca meaware of several other groupsscattered over America who wereusing the name of Majesty."It was really odd," drummerMike Portnoy told me recently."There was this one group inlas Vegas that held thetrademark to the name. Theyhadn't been gigging very much,'-17DIIEAIf THEATI.'Melt DtuIII And Day U"n.'(lla IfeF J.us)1rI1rI1rI1lI1rITHIS MORNING I place a tape inmy hi-fi system. It is by a newAmerican rock group calledDream Theater. We press theplay button and I am immediatelyphased. There are soundscoming out of my speakers that Ihave not experienced for 16 yearsor more.I hope you are beginning tocotton on to what is gOing onhere. This is a new record by anew band who appear to beanxious to re-experience theyears 1972 to 1978, the goldenage of progressive rock music.Surprisingly they do it very welland for that we shall deliver thema more than positive appraisal oftheir work - that's eight tracks or,if you like, all 51 minutes 17seconds' worth.'When Dream And Day Unite' isa preposterous title. It suggeststhat the contents are in some wayselective, a poignant cut abovethe rest and in that respect ourassumption is absolutely correct.Here is musical dexterity I havenot heard in hard rock circlessince the glory jazz rock days ofDixie Dreggs or, as a moreaccurate description, earlyKansas.Keyboards run wild in alldirections conjuring up soundsfrom the common or gardenHammond organ to the morei select poly-Moog. Meanwhile,the guitar playing is of such anawesome technical standard thatI was immediately reminded of asensational hybrid of Jeff Beck('Blow By Blow' vintage) and PhilManzanera (Brand X).Then there is the drumming toconsider. We must now all sitdown and breathe deeplybecause in Mike Portnoy I seesomeone who is clearly betterthan Neil Peart or Bi lly Cobham.Yes, this record is a wonderfulbundle of fun and even thelongest track - that's the madcapopus 'The Killing Hand', whichweighs in at a cosy nine minutes- is so captivating that it appearsto be ove~ before it's even begun.IDream Theater stick out of the, current scene like a sore thumb., Every track tells a story, whetherit be about lost love or castles inthe sky, and there for all to mockis a real life all instrumental track'The Ones Who Help To Set TheSun' (what a marvellous title)which twists, weaves and hopson the spot like a Mexicanjumping bean.I return to the tape deck andselect the continuous play mode.Dream Theater and myself are' / now th'3 best of buddies and wewill continue to enjoy eachother's company for manymoons. TOOight, as they say, willlast forevtlr. DEREK OLIVERno r had they any product out, butth ey just wouldn't give up thena me. We tried to buy it off them,but they still wouldn't let it go."Th e name Dream Theater camefrom the lips of Mike's father,who lives in Monterey, California.He told the lads about a peculiarmovie theatre he used to visitca ll ed, of all things, the Dre amSTheater. The name stuck.O, WITH a new set of demosin thei r pockets, in ea rly 1988they eventually cam e to th eattention of th e newly-formedMechanic record label, asubsidiary of MCA. The labelvisited the band in rehearsal,li ked what th ey saw, and offeredDrea m Theater a deal.Immediately after th e ink haddried, th e band were packed offto Pen nsylvani a where th eycommenced recording withprod ucer Terry Date (a fell awho's worked in the past withMetal Church, Fifth Angel andSanctuary) .Says Mike Po rtnoy: " It feltgreat, after spending yearscutting demos on a four-trackmachine, to suddenly w alk into a48-track studio. The only rea lproblem was that we had justthree-and-a-half weeks in whichto record the album, and I wishth at we could have had just a fewmore days."Frankly, to have recorded sucha fin e opus as 'When Drea m And~ a y Unite' in such short space of~me IS absolutely incredible.ush, who have been known tospend six months or more in the~t Udio , would probably collapseh n a fit of envy if th ey ever got toea r the Dream Theater' project.""KE PORTNOY: heir to the Neil Peart throneIncidentally, talking of Rush , itw as none other than Terry Brown(an old Rush collaborator) whowas drafted in to remix two of thealbum's tracks; that's 'After Life'and 'State Of Confusion'."Obviously we have greatadmiration for his w ork withRush so it was particularlyexciting for us to have him rem ixa coupl e of the songs," say,sPortno~ ." Unfortunately w e didn't get tomeet hi m, we just speke to himon the telephone and told himwhat sort of sound we werelooking for, and he went awaywith the tapel and did it. nWerelil't you afraid that ulingTerry might make the Rushcomparisons a little too obvious?" I see what you mean," Mikereplies."However, the fact that he'sdone Rush didn't affect ourdecision to use him. Obviouslywe thought carefully about th at,but for our kind of music he'sr. fobaply th e best guy to u,se.A n yw~ y , even though a lot ofpeople have made the Rushcompa rision, it's really a bit likesaying that Anthrax sound likeMet lIica. We just work in thesame area of music, that's all."I personally think thatcomparisons are a kind ofcompliment. W,'revery inspi redby progressive roCk ofthe emly'70s, and when people spot that itmakes us feel like we've actuallyachieved something worthwhile.Having said that, we don't go allout to recreate that soundexactly, we've intentionally 'recorded it in a very modern wayjust to be as contemporary aspossible within the styl e."We grew up listening to oldbands like Yes, Rush, Jethro Tulland ELP, and got completelyimmersed in their sound. Th eremarka ble thing is th at moststyles of music tend to go aroundin cycles, so I think it's just aboutthe right time for a sound likeours to make an impact."Do you intentionally sit downto write songs in excess of fiveminutes?"No, there 's no element of'Hey, let's turn this riff into anei ght or nin e-minute song'. Yousee, once we have th e concept,we write the music to fit, so that itwill last as long as it ta kes tomake th at particul ar state ment."Actually," he goes on toelaborate, "w e've just written area lly long song, weighing inright now at just over 20 minutes.Th e working title is 'A Ch ange OfSeasons' and it might very wellend up filling the entire side of analbum, who knows?"Okay, do you go out of yourway to write rea lly complexarra ngements?"Again, the answer is no.Nothing is made intentionallycomplex. We just go with th emood, do what ever fee ls natu ral.Nobody goes out of his way tomake a big impression, that's notwhat it's really all about. "And there you have it. DreamTheater: one ofthe mostinnovative bands in town.