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A world dedicated to music.

I love rock, metal, and progressive, but you'll also hear classical, Big Band jazz, oldies, and anything else that tickles my ears.

Blind Guardian - Wheel Of Time

The Wheel Of Time is a popular epic fantasy novel series, penned by Robert Jordan (and his successor Brandon Sanderson upon his death). I've been meaning to read it for many years now, and I'm about to start the first book.

In their 2010 album At The Edge of Time, German power metal Bards Blind Guardian paid their own tribute to the series with this intense epic tune.

Dream Theater Countdown - The Glass Prison

Concluding the Dream Theater Countdown is my #1 favorite song, "The Glass Prison" from the album Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (2002). This was the first of five songs over five albums that comprised Mike Portnoy's Twelve Steps Suite, about his own struggles with alcoholism.

Dream Theater Countdown - Sacrificed Sons & 9/11 Post

Today's post doubles as both the next part of the DT countdown, and my own tribute to the memory of 9/11.

I was at school (college) when we heard rumors of a plane hitting the World Trade Center, and I assumed at first they just meant like a small commuter plane that had gone off course or something. But as the class hour went by, we learned the full details. One classmate was very upset because she had friends in New York on that day. I spent a long time talking to her, and then went home (class had basically been called off). I remember that night as the news programs endlessly repeated the videos of the towers collapsing, the magnitude of what happened finally hit me and I felt so ill I could not keep my dinner down.

Today's Dream Theater song is "Sacrificed Sons" a song all about 9/11. This version comes from Score, the DVD of the final performance of their 20th Anniversary Tour at Radio City Music Hall.

Dream Theater Countdown - Take The Time

Continuing the countdown is "Take The Time" from the band's breakout 1992 album Images & Words, containing this and many other classic DT tunes.

Dream Theater Countdown - These Walls

On September 13, Dream Theater's 11th studio album A Dramatic Turn of Events will be released. The album marks a turning point in DT history, with Mike Mangini replacing long-time drummer and band co-founder Mike Portnoy.

To celebrate the album's arrival, I'll be posting a favorite DT song each day. Today we start with "These Walls" from their 8th album, Octavarium (2005).