Label: Sound Mind Music/The Orchard Music
Release date: 8/28/2020 digital / 10/30/2020 physical
Produced by: John Petrucci
Album length: 55.10 min
Genre: Progressive Metal/ Instrumental Rock
Rating: 9.5/10
“Terminal Velocity” is the first new solo studio album in 15 years from one of the best-loved heroes of guitar wizardry of our time, Dream Theater founder and leader John Petrucci. What can you say? Hallelujah! We’ve been waiting for this one far too long. Given Petrucci’s packed schedule, which is dictated first and foremost by Dream Theater, this damn pandemic has been a welcome thing for the guy in a way, since under “isolation and solitude” it handed him enough time to finish off some old ideas that had been piling up in dusty archives over the years.
“Terminal Velocity” isn’t special only because two old Dream Theater buddies, John Petrucci and drummer Mike Portnoy (Transatlantic, Winery Dogs, Sons Of Apollo, Flying Colors), are playing together again after more than ten years, but also because it features top-notch bassist Dave LaRue of Dixie Dregs and Flying Colors. Dave LaRue is something of a returnee for Petrucci too, since he played bass on Petrucci’s solo studio debut and on the G3 tours. And there are no secrets between Portnoy and LaRue either, since together they hold down the rhythm section of Flying Colors.
Now comes the expected paragraph. Expected with a name like John Petrucci. There’s no doubt about it, and any question is just a waste of time. There’s only one answer. The album is, to use the mildest form of the superlative, flat-out fantastic. Lovers of guitar “excesses and cannonades of boundless perversions of virtuoso wizardry, especially in terms of combining lush, insightful ideas with spicy technical sharpness, you absolutely must check this album out. On it, Petrucci has finally realized the ideas that had been piling up in his archives and that he couldn’t use for Dream Theater, because if he had, he’d have meddled far too radically with the band’s style.
Petrucci’s style is one of a kind. Add to a guitarist like that a rhythm section with a special drummer and a special bassist, and the result has to be a record that’s (to put it mildly) a mile ahead in how provocative and singular it is, in other words, unrepeatable. You guessed it. The Portnoy–Petrucci connection brings back a bit of that classic Dream Theater sentiment, hinted at in parts of the tracks, both in how the motifs are shaped through the guitar phrasing and in Portnoy’s instantly recognizable way of handling transitions and “breaking up” the rhythms beneath the phrases and the juicy fills he wittily uses to pack the available space within the phrasing. Yes. This is first and foremost a progressive metal album. Petrucci’s neoclassicism is phenomenally woven into and soaked up by the core of these extremely dynamic compositions, which are accompanied throughout by unexpected twists and turns. And for all that witty dynamism, the nine songs each have a clearly defined character, nine confessional dossiers with a high degree of compactness, so the musical structure consistently overpowers and keeps a grip on the “experimental, improvisational” side. Across all nine songs, Petrucci found an excellent balance between technical complexity and musical compactness. You simply want an idea-fresh album like this new Petrucci effort more than once every fifteen years, which is how long it’s been since his previous solo outing. Cheekily put, it’ll also be enjoyed by all those music gourmets who would probably love to listen to Dream Theater, but are held back by the fact that they (sadly) aren’t an instrumental band.
Petrucci and sound engineer Jimmy T recorded this album in two and a half months at DT Headquarters in New York, and the two of them holed up there five days a week. They clicked in the drums, and both of them contributed the basic bass lines. Petrucci didn’t want to put out a (half-baked) album like that. All this material went off to Portnoy and LaRue for treatment, and so it kept developing in a full-blooded progressive direction. The way the three musicians read each other is outstanding. They know each other to the depths of their souls. Complementing, linking up, opening up space for one another. At its core it’s of course a guitar album, and Petrucci’s guitar has the final say everywhere, but the exceptional rhythm section carried it into the language of progressive.
The album opens with the title track, which is exactly what the album’s name promises. Devastatingly sharp. It pushes the speed limit, the ultimate destructiveness of velocity. It can’t go any faster. Incredible energy, a metal nature, a whole parade of dizzying solo acrobatics, and above it all a still-dominant figure of compact form: melody. The Oddfather is a shade more metal-possessed and abrasive, with elements of thrash shredding creeping in, and if you were looking for a parallel from the Dream Theater days, the closest would be the energy of the “Train of Thought” album. This pairing with Portnoy is “insane.” It stuns the listener and entertains them immensely at the same time. The musicians on the album revive (knowingly or not) that famous magic of their connection from the Dream Theater days.
The fourth track, Gemini, is also very vivid, and in its second half it totally unexpectedly morphs into a playful flamenco excursion that adds leaps of color and variety to the album. Gemini is one of the album’s most interesting compositions, especially when you look at how it develops, how it builds gradually upward through an incredible weave of stacked motifs, without losing the thread of compactness for even a moment. Gemini counts as one of this album’s peaks because it packs outstanding stylistic and rhythmic layering into one place and arranges it with filigree precision, in the form of a perfectly reconciled dialogue, so this is a track we can take as an example of what the fundamental definition of the best in progressive metal is.
Out of the Blue is really Petrucci’s collision of blues and neoclassical training. The tune is written in a slower rhythmic key, and this is exactly where the superb mastery of Portnoy and LaRue is fully on display, carrying the song toward an expressiveness the composition would never reach otherwise. Happy Song is actually a track with more resolutions in major scales, with a basic rock’n’roll “incitement” slipped in, but it’s ultrasonically sped up and rhythmically jumpy, so there’s no room to catch your breath here either. A song full of cheer, which The Way Things Fall then moves close to. Glassy-Eyes Zombies opens with a phrase that could just as well have been used on a Dream Theater album like “Train of Thought.” Probably the darkest track on the album, though The Oddfather remains by far the most metal-possessed piece of “Terminal Velocity” when it comes to destructiveness. Then there’s another hugely fun tune, where Petrucci treats himself to the most experimental excursions and which surprises the most on the album. The title already hints at it: Snake in My Boot. Even Paul Gilbert would raise an eyebrow or two here. The cheekiest moment on the album and, as far as listening goes, the most exciting one too.
The trio knows how to rein it in and calm things down. It’s not all about flexing muscles. Several times on this album all three musicians can also be subtle and sophisticated. Out of the Blue shows exactly that. But the top spot probably goes to the middle section of the closing Temple of Circadia, with a synthesizer “curtain” added in the background, and in its first part Petrucci and crew even speak in a mystical tone, before the song slowly soars into one more insanely wound-up, speed-wrecking rondo, a whirling tornado that closes out the album.
However you look at it. Nobody (sane) wants this pandemic. And yet it’s a big question whether Petrucci would have gotten his new solo studio album out otherwise, because he probably simply wouldn’t have had enough time. Crazy. The freshness, sparkle, wit and boundless fun this thing radiates from the studio. A brilliant progressive, all-instrumental metal album that’s everything Petrucci isn’t allowed to be in Dream Theater, and yet you know full well that without an album like “Teminal Velocitiy,” there would never have been a Dream Theater. There isn’t a weak moment on “Terminal Velocity.” There’s no moment that steals your time, and no moment that’s inferior in expression, composition, ideas or performance. From start to finish the album speaks to you in a glow of high-quality consistency and breathtaking performance intensity that keeps the listener constantly on high alert. First and foremost, of course, the die-hard fan of this kind of all-instrumental lunacy.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1.Terminal Velocity
2. The Oddfather
3. Happy Song
4. Gemini
5. Out Of The Blue
6. Glassy-Eyed Zombies
7. The Way Things Fall
8. Snake In My Boot
9. Temple Of Circadia
Lineup:
John Petrucci – guitar, programming
Dave LaRue – bass
Mike Portnoy – drums
