New Dream Theater Album Coming in September?
John Petrucci has been busy as hell during the pandemic, releasing a solo album (his first in 15 years), a Liquid Tension Experiment album (their first in 22 years) and grooming his beard (a constant pastime). You can now add one more project to that list: writing and recording a new Dream Theater album — which The Trooch has previously said will include 8-string guitars for the first time — and will be the follow-up to Distance Over Time, released in 2019.
Today’s news comes not from Sir John, however, but from drummer Mike Mangini. Speaking with Rock Overdose, the skinsman mostly focused on his increased role in the writing process this time around, but dropped a nugget about a possible September release date.
Mangini explained of how his contributions to Dream Theater’s songwriting have grown gradually since he joined the band in 2011, as well as sharing a bit about the direction of the band’s next album:
“People just can expect another upgrade. Another upgrade in what? Another upgrade in everything that we did before, taking the best of. So you take the best of each of the four albums and combine it, and here you go — here’s my fifth one. Because there were different ways that we made each of the albums. Distance Over Time was the only one, to me, that I was involved with to the level that I was.
“And this latest one, again, upgraded — meaning I was way more involved, even, than normal. And I don’t mean to say ‘I’; it’s not about me. It’s everybody. So, by default, everybody was more involved in a way where you go around a room and express anything you wanted to express right at that moment for that part in the song. So it was really cool like that.”
He added:
“I can only estimate that since we probably will release the record in September of this year that people will probably hear something a certain amount of weeks before it comes out, for promotion — like a snippet. So this summer is probably when [a new song will be released].”
So that’s exciting, eh? Something else to look forward as we put this awful year, year and a half, in the rearview. Although let’s take Mangini’s comment with a bit of salt… he doesn’t seem 100% certain, and he’s likely not involved in such decisions anyway.
You can listen to the full interview with Mangini below.
In case you missed it, make sure you catch this incredible video of an Indonesian man playing “Metropolis, Part 1” on a homemade drum kit assembled from buckets, tape and scrap metal.
