Dream Theater: Portnoy and Petrucci Reunite

Terminal Velocity, the second solo album from Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci, was already a big, fat blip on everyone’s radar, because a) duh it’s John Petrucci, and b) it’s been fifteen years since Petrucci’s last solo album, Suspended Animation, and people really like Suspended Animation.

Now we have some news which only makes us wanna hear the album more:

All of the drums on Terminal Velocity were recorded by Mike Portnoy.

I probably don’t have to tell you that this will be the first time Petrucci and Portnoy have made new music together since Portnoy left Dream Theater a decade ago (it’s been even longer since they did anything with their other much-admired project, Liquid Tension Experiment). Since Dream Theater are arguably the biggest prog-metal band of all time, the duo working together again is what’s known in the industry as “kind of a big deal.”

Portnoy made the announcement on social media yesterday. He also revealed that Dave LaRue, from Dixie Dregs, plays bass on the album.

Although this is exciting news, it’s not exactly shocking: Portnoy said he’d love to work with Petrucci again just this past January. Actually, in retrospect, he almost certainly knew by then that he and Petrucci would be working together again. So.

Terminal Velocity doesn’t have a release date yet but we can probably expect it before the end of 2020 if they’re doin’ all this teasin’.

[via]