Dream Theater - Distance Over Time -2019- -flac... May 2026

After the 130-minute rock opera that was The Astonishing, guitarist John Petrucci and company decamped to a studio in the Catskill Mountains. The goal was spontaneity. The result is an album that breathes.

In FLAC format, this "live-in-the-studio" energy is palpable. Listen to "Untethered Angel." On a standard MP3, the initial guitar swell feels compressed. In high-resolution FLAC, the attack of Petrucci’s fingers on the strings and the immediate bloom of his Mesa/Boogie rig are razor-sharp. You hear the room—a subtle, natural reverb that digital brick-wall limiting usually murders. Dream Theater - Distance Over Time -2019- -FLAC...

Modern metal suffers from the "loudness war"—crushing dynamic range so everything sounds loud on earbuds. Distance Over Time is a refreshing exception. The mix by Ben Grosse and mastering by Tom Baker preserves a wide dynamic range. After the 130-minute rock opera that was The

This is the "radio single" of the group, but in FLAC, the panning of Petrucci’s rhythm guitars (hard left and right) creates a massive wall of sound. Listen for the stereo imaging of Rudess’s synth pads in the background—they fill the center channel without clashing with James LaBrie’s vocals. In FLAC format, this "live-in-the-studio" energy is palpable

Rudess famously used a newly developed "Geoshred" MIDI controller and his trusty Continuum. The ambient pads on S2N contain high-frequency information that many codecs filter out as "inaudible." But your ears feel it. FLAC retains the sparkle and decay of those synth washes.