Crítica A Dramatic Turn Of Events

Bueno gente, con algo de retraso me dispongo a ofreceros mi opinión sobre el último disco de la banda de metal progresivo Dream Theater. El álbum fue publicado hace ya unas semanas pero no pude escucharlo hasta la semana pasada.
Para los seguidores de este grupo, sabréis que es de esas bandas que te van gustando poco a poco más y ese es mi caso. Siempre he visto en ellos el "all-star" del metal ya que en mi opinión contaban con lo mejor en cada puesto. El mejor guitarrista (Petrucci), mejor bajista (Myung), mejor batería (Portnoy), mejor teclista (Rudess) y un enorme vocalista (LaBrie).
A pesar de la baja de Mike Portnoy, Mangini ha hecho un grandísimo trabajo en A Dramatic Turn Of Events. He quedado sorprendido por la grandiosidad de esta obra que cuenta con 9 canciones espectaculares, algunas que te hacen disfrutar como un niño con un juguete nuevo. Otras te hacen casi llorar de la tristeza que desprenden. Pero si una canción me ha sorprendido especialmente es "Build Me Up, Break Me Down". Tiene uno de los estribillos más grandiosos que he escuchado y conforma una canción majestuosa. Otra como "Lost Not Forgotten" incluye un inicio maravilloso que parece una melodía al más puro estilo cajita de música. "This is the Life", "Far From Heaven" y "Beneath The Surface" son otras tres especie de baladas realmente emocionantes. El disco se completa con el resto de canciones, típicas de Dream Theater con riffs que sólo podía crear John Petrucci, partes de batería enormes, brillantez en el bajo de la mano de John Myung y esos toques tan importantes que Jordan Rudess aporta con su teclado. Todo esto, claro está, complementado con la soberbia voz de James LaBrie.
Es un trabajo de lo más completo que te puedes encontrar ahora mismo y sin duda uno de los discos del año (sino el mejor). A pesar de la partida de Mike Portnoy, no han decepcionado para nada y nos han proporcionado una auténtica obra de arte. Voy a ser especialmente generoso con mi nota porque se lo merecen y voy a darles un 9,5. Es un álbum que debería ser escuchado por todos los seguidores del metal.
Os dejo con el vídeo de su primer single, "On The Backs of Angels":

Instant City by Steve Inskeep

Part of the Synopsis From The Dust Jacket:

In recent decades, the world has seen an unprecedented change in human life:  for the first time in history, more people now live in cities than in the countrysides.  As Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep so aptly puts it, we are living in the age of the "instant city," when vast metropolitan areas emerge practically overnight.  No rising metropolis has experienced this epic migration more dramatically than Karachi, Pakistan, which has grown from four hundred thousand people in the 1940s to more than 13 million today.  Karachi is the largest city in a nation of vital strategic interest to the United States - yet is a place Americans frequently misunderstand.  In his first book, Inskeep explores how this one city illuminates the perils and possibilities of rapidly growing megacities all around the world.

I like to think I'm pretty smart and that I have a decent grasp on world history and current geopolitical events that are shaping the world we live in.  Then I see or read something that makes me realize I really don't have a frickin clue.  These are the moments that I both live for and dread.  I love them because they help me remember that I will never stop learning, that there is so much out there for me to discover that I'll never get bored.  On the other hand, it's almost too much to comprehend.  There are times I feel I should be concentrating on one subject for the rest of my life, if I don't, I'll never know what I need to.  Reading Instant City was one such moment.

When I decided I wanted to read/review this book, I wasn't thinking too deeply about it.  There were really only two reasons I wanted to do so.  I'm a fan of Steve Inskeep, I listen to NPR all the time, and I want to know more about Pakistan, a country I don't know all that much about.  That, and this sounds really superficial, but every time I think of Karachi, I think of the last segment of one of my favorite movies.  At the end of Auntie Mame, as she is telling Patrick's son about the sites and sounds he is going to see on their trip, Karachi is one of the place she is telling him about.  Silly reason to read a book, but I'm glad I did.

What I enjoyed the most about this read, even though it made me feel a little dumb at times, was finally being able to understand a little of the history of the region and why India and Pakistan are always at each other's throats.  I know I heard of the partition before, but I never thought about it and the ramifications of splitting apart such a large country into smaller ones.  The concept of it being done along religious lines, gave me a better understanding of the history and and current troubles in the region.

Karachi serves as a perfect petri dish for studying the very modern phenomenon of an Instant City.  When you have mass migration from rural to urban settings, whatever the reasons, it's bound to cause problems that nobody really thought through or prepared for.  Buy investigating Karachi, even by narrowing down to one bloody day in December of 2009, Steve Inskeep is able to look at the subject from all angles.

I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this book.  Please visit the  tour page to read some really insightful reviews on this one.

Mailbox Monday for 10/24/11

Mailbox Monday is a weekly meme created by Marcia at A Girl and Her Books and is being hosted all this month by Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit.

I received a hardcover of The Conference of The Birds by Peter Sis for an upcoming TLC Book Tour

I received a trad paperback of The Tin Ticket by Deborah J. Swiss form the publicist for review

I bought a trade paperback of Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie on my last trip to Barnes & Noble