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Dream Theater: Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Elektra Records
Released: 2002.01.29
Time:
 54:18 / 42:02
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy
Rating:
Media type: 2xCD
Web address: www.dreamtheater.net
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2016
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


Disc one

[1] The Glass Prison (J.Petrucci/J.Myung/J.Rudess/M.Portnoy) - 13:52
      I. Reflection - 5:54
      II. Restoration - 3:44
      III. Revelation - 4:14
[2] Blind Faith (J.Petrucci/J.Myung/J.Rudess/M.Portnoy/J.LaBrie) - 10:21
[3] Misunderstood (J.Petrucci/J.Myung/J.Rudess/M.Portnoy) - 9:32
[4] The Great Debate (J.Petrucci/J.Myung/J.Rudess/M.Portnoy) - 13:46
[5] Disappear (J.Petrucci/J.Myung/J.Rudess/M.Portnoy/J.LaBrie) - 6:46


Disc two

[1] Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (J.Petrucci/J.Myung/J.Rudess/M.Portnoy) - 42:02
      I. Overture - 6:50
      II. About to Crash - 5:50
      III. War Inside My Head - 2:08
      IV. The Test That Stumped Them All - 5:03
      V. Goodnight Kiss - 6:17
      VI. Solitary Shell - 5:47
      VII. About to Crash (Reprise) - 4:04
      VIII. Losing Time/Grand Finale - 5:59



 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


James LaBrie - Lead Vocals
John Petrucci - Guitar, Background Vocals, Producer
Jordan Rudess - Keyboard
John Myung - Bass
Mike Portnoy - Drums, Backing Vocals, Co-Lead Vocals on [1-1,2-1-III], Producer

Howard Portnoy - Gong Drum on [5]

Doug Oberkircher - Engineer
J.P. Sheganoski - Assistant Engineer
Kevin Shirley - Mixing
Claudius Mittendorfer - Mixing
George Marino - Mastering
UE Nastasi - Assistant Mastering
Dung Hoang - Illustrations
JMatic - Art Direction
Ken Schles - Photography
May Redding - Stylist

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2002 CD Elektra - 7559-62742-2
2013 LP Music On Vinyl - MOVLP781

Recorded in 2001 at BearTracks Studios in Suffern, New York.



The godfathers of progressive metal have been amazing and delighting their dedicated fans since the late '80s. Throughout their impressive and unlikely career they have continued to push themselves and the genre into new and challenging directions. While arguably hitting their peak with 1994's Awake, the band continued to grow with each new release (save for perhaps Falling into Infinity). Their previous studio effort, Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From a Memory, was a milestone in their career, finding all of the band's best attributes amalgamated into a fully realized whole. Although "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" may not be another magnum opus, it is still another fine addition to their impressive discography. The band continues to explore new directions, but the results are not always consistent on the two CD's worth of material. Their overall sound is heavier, for better or worse, than it has been and they make some interesting compositional and lyrical choices, but their usual afflatus is missing. Petrucci in particular seems content to recycle his already-established pyrotechnics, which mostly come off as ostentatious and often out of place. With the exception of the high-octane "The Glass Prison," disc one is made up of more experimental tracks, with influences such as Radiohead and Tool being explored. The band also offers up one of their only political tracks in "The Great Debate," which deals with stem cell research. Disc two is comprised of the eight-part "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" epic and is more in line with their traditional approach. The "Overture" incorporates a full orchestra with surprisingly effective results and is the recording's standout track. Keyboardist Jordan Rudess gets more of an opportunity to demonstrate how valuable he is to the band's compositional and sonic depth. Fans of Pantera may cry foul when they hear "The Test That Stumped Them All," but this is meant more as a tribute than the blatant thievery it appears to be. While each member of Dream Theater has proved to have a more sophisticated and mature side -- as evidenced by side projects such as Transatlantic, Platypus, Liquid Tension Experiment, and Mullmuzer -- they understand where their proverbial bread is buttered. So exists Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, an intentionally pretentious, somewhat juvenile, but undeniably likeable recording. Despite the nearly impossible task of satisfying their mostly youthful fan base while still nurturing the band's natural maturation process, Dream Theater has mostly managed to deliver once again.

Rating: 4/5

Robert Taylor - All Music Guide


The music of Dream Theater - a metal-flake blend of Styx drama and ELP grandeur - seems to divide listeners into "love 'em" and "hate 'em" camps. The band's sixth album, an ambitious double-CD titled Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, is unlikely to alter that dichotomy. The thing is, with Dream Theater, you know what you're getting: musical virtuosity and technical perfection. The five songs on Disc One have all of the above in spades, with "The Glass Prison" and "Misunderstood" ranking among the best songs in Dream Theater's catalog. It is on the second disc's all-encompassing title track, however, that the group really brings it on home. Less a song than an eight-part spiritual pilgrimage, "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" is a gorgeous conceptual masterpiece exploring the many facets of mental illness. Despite the seriousness of the material, lyrics are poetically matter-of-fact, but never morose or too heavy handed. Musically, influences as disparate as Pink Floyd, Metallica and Yes creep in and lend an uplifting feel to the work. For fans of Dream Theater, it is "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" that will separate the zealots from the mere enthusiasts.

Gail Worley - January 28, 2002
RollingStone.com



Never a band to do things by halves, Dream Theater here delivers a two-disc extravaganza with a title track that clocks in at a prog-tastic 42 minutes. Very much in the style of its 1999 studio predecessor, Scenes from a Memory, the "Six Degrees" piece, which occupies the entire second disc, is divided into eight movements beginning, of course, with the overture. It's meaty stuff, though musically it alternately noodles and thrashes about in a somewhat haphazard manner while singer-lyricist James LaBrie's struggles to make an impression over the stunning instrumental onslaught. The first disc serves up five pieces averaging about 10 minutes each that hearken back to the grungier sound of 1994's Awake. The result is an album that fulfills fans' expectations. These guys have found a formula and they're sticking to it.

Mark Walker - Amazon.com



If there was ever a time for a bit of fantasy, this is it, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we’re witnessing the rebirth of a Drooler Nation. The film version of the essential handbook ”The Lord of the Rings” has lived up to most expectations, with two sequels to come. On the smaller screen, the latest ”Star Trek” offshoot, ”Enterprise,” is marginally livelier than its earnest predecessor ”Voyager.” In the music department, could there have been better affirmation of the relentless appeal of prog and art rock than the sight of Pink Floyd’s end-of-the-year ”Echoes” compilation logging weeks in the top 20, while the Backstreet Boys’ simultaneously released hits package continues its chart free fall?

As the Floyd set also proves, though, prog — that mind-expanding, alternately rapturous and indulgent form of sci-fi rock — exists mostly as nostalgia. In addition to the Floyd collection, we’ve seen expanded, bonus-track reissues of the Kansas catalog as well as recent tribute albums to Floyd and Genesis. ”New” prog is another matter altogether: Who’s brave or foolhardy enough to go where no man but a member of Yes has gone before? But on their most grandiose creation, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, Dream Theater throw down the gauntlet in ways that should humble even prog-influenced vortices like Tool and Incubus.

Like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or that massive ball of twine in Kansas, some things are so humbling that their very existence leaves you gaping in openmouthed, saucer-eyed awe. Imagine, for instance, a concept album about mentally disturbed characters fending off forces of darkness. Said album, by a band only about a decade old, also presents fretboard-frenzy guitar solos, concerto-chops piano, traipsing-through-the-meadow synthesizers, drum triplets, songs over a dozen minutes long, and a completely unironic use of the gong. Oh, and imagine one more thing: It’s a double CD.

After it opens like any classic prog album should, with the ringing of a tolling bell, the first half of ”Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence” dives into songs about the pros and cons of stem-cell research (!) and a ”Messiah” who must save us. Soaked in battering-ram guitars, it’s dark and bleak, with shifting tempos and textures. ”Misunderstood,” the latest variation on the long-running subject of the alienated teen, begins with pastoral guitars and strings and eventually shifts to dungeons-and-dragons guitar wailing and an operatic choir. It’s well done, but at times too dank and heavy metal fueled to qualify as the more instrumentally diverse prog.

True prog nirvana awaits those brave few who make it to the second disc. A suite about six whacked-out characters — war veteran, creative-loner boy, and solitary depressed girl among them — it opens with an orchestrated, pure-pomp ”Overture” and then shifts into twee woodsy folk-prog and straight-faced Styxian pageantry. Keyboardist Jordan Rudess even sounds as if he is playing a goopy old-school Moog or Arp synth, for which he scores major period-detail points. The lyrics are rarely subtle (”Counseling and therapy/Providing not a clue” in ”The Test That Stumped Them All”), and earnest lead singer James LaBrie lacks the over-the-top vocal personality of helium-voiced prog frontmen like Geddy or Jon. But there’s no denying how well Dream Theater re-create the genre’s hallmarks while updating them for the extreme-rock era with harder guitars and drum pummeling. It makes you wonder which act is gutsier: Eminem slamming another teen-pop star or Dream Theater ignoring, and thereby dissing, every style of music that’s existed since 1976.

For all the angst in its music, Dream Theater’s songs ultimately aim for uplift. The numb girl in ”About to Crash” eventually overcomes her inertia and rediscovers ”boundless power,” while the Frodo-like narrator of ”The Glass Prison” goes on a ”new odyssey of rigorous honesty” toward ”the temple of hope” — and gets there! In light of our daily dose of nightly news, it?s easy to understand why prog may rise again — and why a new generation would seek music and movies to transport itself to another, greener planet and time.

David Browne - February 4, 2002
Entertainment Weekly - Copyright © 2016 Time



Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence is the sixth full-length studio album by progressive metal band Dream Theater, released as a double-disc album on January 29, 2002 through Elektra Records. Excluding the A Change of Seasons EP, it is the first Dream Theater album to feature a title track.

The recording is a type of concept album wherein the five songs which comprise the first disc explore different themes of lifetime struggle, such as alcoholism, loss of faith, self-isolation, sanctity of life and death. The sixth song—a 42-minute track occupying the second disc, separated into eight parts—explores the stories of six individuals suffering from various mental illnesses. Particularly represented are bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, post-partum depression, autism and dissociative personality disorder. Furthermore, the title of the album may also allude to the fact that each song on the album could be seen as a different form of inner turbulence, with the six tracks making another reference to the six degrees, along with the apparent reference to the six degrees of separation. The musical styles of each section of the title track are direct reflections of the band's large variety of influences. Classical, folk, jazz and metal styles are present within the track.

wikipedia.org
 

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