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2009-05-06

Song Spotlight: Dream Theater - "A Rite of Passage"

NOTE: This download was only up for 24 hours and is thus no longer available.

This morning, I woke up to find the kind of email that I love to receive: a new Dream Theater MP3 is available to download, absolutely free, from the Roadrunner website. "A Rite of Passage" is the first single from the band's latest album, Black Clouds & Silver Linings, which is set to be released on June 23, 2009. Dream Theater have been one of my favourite bands for about 15 years now, and I still get excited whenever they release new music.

To access the MP3, a short form must be filled out with details like name, email address, zip code, etc. Unfortunately, the 19.7 MB download has been very slow for me, coming to a complete halt and forcing me to restart several times; I hope that this is just a case of the Roadrunner servers being hammered by Dream Theater fans eager to hear the new song, and that download speeds will pick up soon.

"A Rite of Passage" is mainly a mid-tempo rocker along the lines of the band's greatest hit, "Pull Me Under", at least until the breakdown is reached and the tempo picks up for John Petrucci's guitar solo, which is followed immediately by Jordan Rudess's keyboard solo. There's not a lot in this song that Dream Theater have not done before, but I have always found that their lead singles are rarely their most innovative songs. There are some nice layered vocal effects throughout the entire song, and at the very end a choir can be heard, which sounds quite cool and is a welcome addition to Dream Theater's sound.

Whether you're a Dream Theater fan already or are completely new to the band, "A Rite of Passage" should make a nice addition to your MP3 library.  For my part, it has me anticipating the new album more than ever.  Happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/ariteofpassage/

4 comments:

David said...

And once again, Jeff beats me to it. :-) I know it's not Friday...

JT said...

Haha, no worries - we're all in this together. :)

David said...

Since you are a Dream Theater fan, did you see my post about Mike Portnoy drumming on a Motörhead cover?

JT said...

I sure did - just waiting for a chance to listen to it. Looks like a great find!

(that post can be found here, for anyone wondering)