Progressive metal icons Dream Theatre have set “Distance Over Time” as the title of their fourteenth studio album, due out in February 2019. Dream Theatre will kick off the “Distance Over Time” promotional cycle with a six-week North American tour that launches in San Diego, California on March 20. The tour poster includes the tag line “Celebrating 20 Years Of Scenes From A Memory,” a reference to the group’s acclaimed 1999 concept album “Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory”, which the band has not performed live in its entirety in nearly two decades. It is unclear at this point if they plan to do so again in 2019.
To announce the details of “Distance Over Time”, Dream Theatre enlisted the help of fans to spread the word about the release and even to break the news of the record release date, cover artwork, and to share the first taste of never-before-heard music. With this album, Dream Theatre hoped to create a fan engagement experience unlike any previously undertaken.
“Distance Over Time” — described in a press release as a “return to the band’s roots” — was recorded over the summer. Earlier this year, vocalist James LaBrie stated about the new material, “There’s a heaviness to it, there’s an aggression to it,” while guitarist John Petrucci added, “So far the music is heavy, it’s progressive, it’s melodic, it’s shredding, and it’s also epic. So it has all those elements, which… they are the five pillars of Dream Theatre, if you wanna call it that.”
Keyboardist Jordan Rudess told Lotsofmuzik that Dream Theatre’s follow-up to 2016’s “The Astonishing”, the wildly ambitious double concept LP which has been criticized by some fans for being an overblown, self-indulgent exercise in excess, would see him and his bandmates going “back to the core of the sound — screaming Hammond organ, killing leads, chunky riffs, slamming drums, and everybody will be there moshing! [Laughs]”
(Blabbermouth)
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