No other band has affected modern progressive metal as deeply or widely as American quintet Dream Theater. Formed at Berklee College of Music) as Majesty in 1985 by guitarist John Petrucci, drummer Mike Portnoy, and bassist John Myung, the group has spent thirty years repeatedly pushing new boundaries and reinventing their identity. Although other acts - such as Queensryche and Fates Warning - paved the way for the prog-metal subgenre, Dream Theater were without doubt the first to meld influences from both metal and progressive rock into a groundbreaking blend of quirky instrumentation, extensively complex arrangements, and exceptional songwriting. Whether subtly or overtly, they've since left their mark on just about every progressive metal band that's followed.

In this book, Jordan Blum examines virtually all Dream Theater collections, and their behind-the-scenes circumstances, to explore how the group distinctively impacted the genre with each release. Whether classics of the 1990s like Images and Words and Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory, benchmarks of the 2000s like Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence and Octavarium, or even thrilling modern efforts like A Dramatic Turn of Events and Distance Over Time, every sequence of albums contributes something crucial to making Dream Theater's legacy nothing short of astonishing.