Dream Theater

Dream Theater is the last living remnant of that triumphant tribe of intellectual heaviness from yesteryear, the last fragment of the time when only Queensryche T-shirts would do for bibliophilic metalheads. Most bands from that era (Over Kill, Exodus, etc.) are fossils in dollar-vinyl bins, but somehow, over eighteen years with no MTV rotations, radio play or even corporate sponsorship, Dream Theater is still on a major label and filling midsized theaters around the world. Its latest album, Train of Thought, is a glittering, grinding, conceptual bridge spanning the space between Extreme's Pornograffitti and Tool's Aenima. Remember the part of the '80s when kids memorized the words to Master of Puppetsand craved 13-minute songs? That's Dream Theater, and it's doing just fine, thank you.