彻底混沌 (2007)

Systematic Chaos is the ninth studio album by American progressive metal band Dream Theater. Released on June 4, 2007 in the United Kingdom and June 5, 2007 in the United States, Systematic Chaos was the band's first release through Roadrunner Records, which was sold to their previous label Atlantic Records, through which the band had released their previous studio album Octavarium (2005). The album was recorded from September 2006 to February 2007 at Avatar Studios in New York City, after the band's first break from summer touring in ten years. The lyrics of the album were written by John Petrucci, James LaBrie, and Mike Portnoy about fictional, political, and personal topics, respectively.

The album peaked in the top twenty in eight countries' sales charts; in addition, the album peaked at the nineteenth position on the Billboard 200, making it the highest peaking Dream Theater album in the United States until the release of Black Clouds & Silver Linings (2009), which debuted at the sixth position. Critical reception of the album was generally positive; Jon Eardley from MetalReview.com called the band, "arguably the most consistent band throughout the entire progressive rock/metal industry".

Dream Theater promoted the album on their Chaos in Motion world tour, which lasted a year and spanned 35 countries. The album was released in regular and special edition formats; the special edition included a 5.1 surround sound mix of the album, in addition to a 90-minute "making of" documentary about the album.

Background

After recording their twentieth anniversary concert, Score, on April 1, 2006, Dream Theater rested for its first summer in ten years. The band would reconvene at Avatar Studios, in New York City, in September 2006, where they previously recorded Falling into Infinity in 1997. Mike Portnoy stated that the relationship between band members was "the best it's ever been". The band hired Paul Northfield, who had previously worked with bands that had inspired Dream Theater, including Rush and Queensrÿche, to engineer the album. As with previous albums, Dream Theater simultaneously wrote and recorded Systematic Chaos. Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci co-produced the album; Portnoy said that the band hires an engineer and a mixer to act as an "objective outside ear", but the members ultimately "call their own shots". Previous Dream Theater albums shared planned themes throughout, such as Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory (1999) as a concept album or Train of Thought (2003) as a heavy, "balls to the wall" album. Though Portnoy had some preconceived ideas for Systematic Chaos, he decided not to tell the rest of the band; leaving them to start with a "completely open palate". However, Portnoy did want to retain a "cutting, aggressive, modern" mood throughout, "It had to have balls," he added, "it had to be cool".

The album was titled Systematic Chaos after Portnoy and Petrucci picked phrases from song lyrics that they felt would be a fitting title, in similar fashion to previous albums like Images and Words (1992) or Awake (1994). The pair selected the word "chaos", which appears in "The Dark Eternal Night". Petrucci and Portnoy were also attracted to the phrase "Random thoughts of neat disorder" which appears in "Constant Motion". Opposites of the word "chaos" were discussed, resulting in the word "systematic". Portnoy said that in addition to the album, "systematic chaos" is also a "fitting description of the band in general".

Songs

John Petrucci wrote the lyrics for five of the eight songs on the album, telling a fictional story through each one.

In the Presence of Enemies

The first piece recorded, the twenty-five-minute epic "In the Presence of Enemies," was described by Petrucci as the "epitome of a Dream Theater creation". He went on to describe the composition as "very progressive, very long"; also noting that it set a good tone for writing and recording the rest of the album. Their longest recording since "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence", it was split into two parts, due to it having a good open and close for the album at the same time. According to Portnoy, the band felt it was too long to open the album, but did not want to close the album with a long song, as they had with the twenty-four-minute title track of their last album Octavarium (2005). The songs are normally played together in their entirety in live shows. During recording, the work was titled, "The Pumpkin King," and in the album's booklet, the song is given a subtitle, "The Heretic and the Dark Master."