Dream Theater Music:

				Label: East West Salesrank: 73964
		Our Price: $73.86
		Used Price: $9.95
		Media: Audio CD

Awake Reviews:
one of the best albums of all time
2009-09-06 - Forget Scenes from a Memory. Forget Images and Words. Awake is Dream Theater's best album and one the best albums of all time, period. As a concept it is seamless. The production is excellent. The lyrics and vocals are beautiful. The musicianship is top notch, as opposed to the shredding Dream Theater have been prone to in their later releases.

The balance between the heavy and the soft stuff is perfect. Each track is a masterpiece in its own right. This is Dream Theater at their artistic peak. I've seen them live twice, but unfortunately they haven't played any cuts from Awake. "Voices," "The Mirror," and "Lifting Shadows off a Dream" are all favorites of mine, but honestly the band could play the whole album live and receive no complaint from me.

An early but very good album
2009-06-10 - My exposure to Dream Theater started two years ago with "Images and Words" and "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence". Liking both of them but preferred 6DoIT. I then moved forward to "Octavarium" and "Systematic Chaos" which I thought were brilliant albums. Recently, I've started working my way backwards through Dream Theater's discography. With some bands, this could be a disappointing experience since their earlier works might lack the maturity or sophistication of their later albums. But I'm pleased to report that "Awake" is a very good album that showcases the mature Dream Theater sound and musicality despite its age.

The main difference between "Awake" and "Images and Words" is that James LaBrie developed his own, more distinctive vocal style; on the previous album, he had sounded a lot like Rush's Geddy Lee. Also, the band significantly increased their use of speaking and playing of sound clips that have been featured in some songs on many DT albums. The main difference between "Awake" and more recent DT albums is that their original keyboardist, Kevin Moore, is still in the band. While the current keyboardist, Jordan Rudess, is more talented, Moore is also quite good; on this album, he plays a lot of (non-electric) piano.

I like all the songs on the album, but my favorites are "Caught in a Web", "Innocence Faded", the 3-part "A Mind Beside Itself" (which is where the album title "Awake" comes from), "Lie", "Lifting Shadows Off a Dream", and the peculiar but beautiful "Space-Dye Vest". All of these and the others I did not list feature good melodies, vibrant instrumentals, and thoughtful lyrics.

Pleased that DT continues to be great!
2009-05-31 - As the second DT disc with James LaBrie at the microphone, this was the perfect continuation to Images and Words. The only downside was that the keyboards sounded a little stale and under-inspired. On wonder...with Kevin Moore leaving as he did. The rest of the band's contributions were supurb.

Not much to say.
2009-03-07 - If you like progressive rock, if you like heavy metal, just buy this record. It speaks for itself. I do recommend the purchase of Images and Words first, just so you can survey the transition and evolution of this remarkable band.

I'd be remiss, however, not to give the album's single hiccup a mention, namely, The Mirror. For me, if lyrics are atrocious enough, they can break a song completely. "Temptation, why don't you leave me alone?"??? Sorry-- Not feeling it. No disrespect intended. Dream Theater IS one of the greatest bands of all time.

Who is Adem that wrote the Amazon Review for this?
2008-07-31 - I can't believe that I have ever seen a rant about prog rock, instead of a review for CD before. Who the heck is this Adem dude anyway? "Rock is supposed to be mindless". Well that is nice to know, now that I have listened to decades of great music with great lyrics by many, many bands that so many other people think are wonderful.

By the way, this is an excellent recording. Don't always pay attention to all of the reviews by the Amazon personnel!