Progressive music titans DREAM THEATER will release their sixteenth studio album, "Parasomnia", on February 7, 2025 via InsideOut Music. The LP marks the band's first release with drummer Mike Portnoy since 2009's "Black Clouds & Silver Linings". The news on this latest album comes on the heels of the recent announcement of the tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of the band.
"Parasomnia" was produced by guitarist John Petrucci, engineered by James "Jimmy T" Meslin, and mixed by Andy Sneap. Hugh Syme returns once again to lend his creative vision to the cover art.
From the opening track "In The Arms Of Morpheus" to the closer of "The Shadow Man Incident", DREAM THEATER returns with a collection of songs that showcase what has earned the band a loyal following for four decades. Clocking in at 71 minutes, "Parasomnia" takes the listener on a musical journey that has become synonymous with the band since the beginning of their career. "Parasomnia" is a term for disruptive, sleep-related disturbances including sleepwalking, sleep paralysis, and night terrors. Songs like "A Broken Man", "Dead Asleep", "Midnight Messiah" and "Bend The Clock" all build upon the themes brought on by the album title. The first single, "Night Terror", is a musical thrill ride captured in the just shy of ten minutes listening experience. A music video for the song — directed by Mike Leonard — is now available and can be seen here.
The track listing for "Parasomnia" is:
01. In The Arms Of Morpheus (5:22)
02. Night Terror (9:55)
03. A Broken Man (8:30)
04. Dead Asleep (11:06)
05. Midnight Messiah (7:58)
06. Are We Dreaming? (1:28)
07. Bend The Clock (7:24)
08. The Shadow Man Incident (19:32)
Portnoy co-founded DREAM THEATER in 1985 with guitarist John Petrucci and bassist John Myung. Mike played on 10 DREAM THEATER albums over a 20-year period, from 1989's "When Dream And Day Unite" through 2009's "Black Clouds & Silver Linings", before exiting the group in 2010.
Mike Mangini joined DREAM THEATER in late 2010 through a widely publicized audition following the departure of Portnoy. Mangini beat out six other of the world's top drummers — Marco Minnemann, Virgil Donati, Aquiles Priester, Thomas Lang, Peter Wildoer and Derek Roddy — for the gig, a three-day process that was filmed for a documentary-style reality show called "The Spirit Carries On".
Asked by Brazil's Marcelo Vieira and Matheus Ribeiro if DREAM THEATER's upcoming LP picks up from where the last DT album he played on, 2009's "Black Clouds & Silver Linings", left off or if it's a different thing entirely, Portnoy said: "If I'm being honest, I think it picks up right where 'Black Clouds' left off, to be honest. There's a certain style that the five of us have when we write together. And if you listen to the album with this lineup from 1999, '[Metropolis Pt. 2:] Scenes From A Memory', through 2009's 'Black Clouds & Silver Linings', if you look at that string of five or six albums, that's the sound and style of these five people. So I think that's a good indication of what you can expect with the new DREAM THEATER album. It definitely sounds like classic DREAM THEATER."
In a recent interview with U.K.'s Devolution magazine, DREAM THEATER keyboardist Jordan Rudess talked about the band's upcoming sixteenth album. Regarding Portnoy's reunion with DREAM THEATER, Rudess said: "I'm really excited because welcoming Mike back is a really emotional, really beautiful thing to his home, where he really should be. He's been so wonderful and very respectful of all of us in terms of — he was gone for a long time. And he has all these skills beyond drumming. So he asks, 'Do you mind if I get involved with this? Is it okay if I get involved with this?' And we're always, like, 'Yeah, man, come on, bring it on. All the stuff that you do, all the Mike Portnoy stuff is important.' And I am so happy because, you know, when I listen back to the music that we've been creating, it's got his stamp on it. You know that some of the stuff is coming from his brain."
(Source: www.blabbermouth.net)