4 for 1994!

Dream Theater: Awake
Queensryche: Promised Land
Savatage: Handful of Rain
Fates Warning: Inside Out

1994: A year of transition. Movies were still generally speaking original ideas, not remakes of old TV shows, comic books or other movies. The TV landscape was still 3 big networks, 1 smaller network and a few specialty cable channels, not like today where there are dozens of single subject cable channels. "The Simpson's" were really starting to enter their peak years with great humor and almost true to life characters. The internet was taking baby steps towards becoming mainstream. Grunge/Alternative was at its peak but the boy bands were beginning their 15 minutes of fame. The guitar solo was beginning to die off entirely. Shred was dead. Classic metal was dead too. Hair bands were double, super dead. MTV was transitioning out of playing videos and into showing reality TV shows. But somehow 4 major label releases by progressive metal bands hit the shelves in the fall of 1994. My life was in transition too, from college to post college.

1994 was the year that these bands were transitioning too. All four of these discs represent in my mind the closing of a chapter. "Handful of Rain" was the last CD Savatage would record as a set of unrelated songs. The next 3 discs would be rock operas and in 2 years a little side project called Trans-siberian orchestra would record their debut Christmas album and become a world wide sensation. Savatage eventually became absorbed by Trans-siberian orchestra and hasn't been heard from since 2001. I consider my self lucky that I got to see them live, and meet them, before they made the transition.

Queensryche's "Promised Land" sold a fraction of what "Empire" did 4 years earlier. In my view, it's the last Queensryche disc that sounds like Queensryche. In 1997 they recorded their first alternative rock disc and in 1999 they gave us their first genuine grunge CD, "Q2k". Fates Warning's "Inside Out" proved to be their last (so far) disc recorded as 2 lead guitar quintet. Musically, this disc is hit and miss. Hits are "Island In the Stream", "Monument", "Pale Fire", "Inward Bound","Outside Looking In", and the weird ballad "Afterglow". The rest isn't bad but, compared to their earlier work mostly forgettable. I really do miss the old Queensryche and Fates Warning!

Dream Theater's "Awake" is my favorite of these 4 discs and also, but alas, DT was also "in transition". Keyboard player Kevin Moore recorded the disc with the band but left shortly thereafter. I know Jordan Rudess is the definitive keyboard player for DT, but Kevin Moore is still my favorite. I don't think DT has ever sounded as good as they did on they disc. Part of the reason was Kevin Moore's heavily distorted keyboard tone. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of classic Jon Lord. I remember buying and listening to this disc on its release day. I was working at National City Bank at the time and didn't quite have the resources to move out, which put a huge damper on my romantic life. Within 6 months, I got my first place on my own and was perfectly willing to work 2 jobs to pay the bills, buy CDs, and have a good, but frugal post college life. Things weren't perfect for me, but I was willing to work and be self reliant, a strategy that worked well ever since.