Music of the Day, 12 August 2023

images and words run deep

Still not sleeping very well. As I lay in bed last night, waiting for sleep, the words to one of Dream Theater’s (DT) most spare and beautiful songs came to mind.

I was introduced to Dream Theater by one of my students, with whom I became friends. When they discovered that I liked Rush, they gave me a tape of a DT album, confident that I’d like it. Well, I liked it enough to buy all their extant releases as soon as I could.

“Wait for Sleep” is from DT’s 1992 album Images and Words. Of all the albums I have (which is mostly their older material), I like this lineup the best. James LaBrie’s clear, versatile voice holds up against the instruments’ prog onslaughts very well; Mike Portnoy is a percussion powerhouse; and keyboardist, composer, and lyricist Kevin Moore is invaluable in all those roles.

Dream Theater is often categorized as prog metal, and much of their output fits that description. “Wait for Sleep” is different. A lush soundscape with the piano carrying most of the melody gives LaBrie plenty of space to show off his vocal range and control. And when Moore starts using chords in the piano’s melodic line mid-song, I invariably get shivers. This isn’t the kind of song most DT fans will think of as displaying their prowess, but I would argue that it does in a very different way than their complex time signatures, syncopated polyrhythms, and technically difficult compositions do.

That suspenseful ending always gets me too; I know what’s coming, yet that last chord still gives me a little jolt. “Wait for Sleep” is an uncharacteristically short DT tune brimming with beauty.