Hey there folks! I'm not sure if Kevin Moore was involved with enough metal bands, and on enough metal albums to warrant a discussion dedicated to his work specifically, so I hesitated a bit to create the thread. However, I'm a sucker for his work with Dream Theater, especially Images and Words, which is one of my all time favorites in the progressive metal scene, and I was interested in knowing what other metalheads thought of his work (So if you like his work at all or not. Negative criticism is also welcome), but also what would you think was his best work and how his contribution might stand out.

Hope this leads to interesting posts and discussions! (And if not, it's fine, I'll just go listen to Images and Words and pout)

Edit: I was listening to Fates Warning's A Pleasant Shade of Gray while writing this opening post. An album I had somehow never really payed much attention to, but decided to listen to because I recently got a bit more interested in Fates Warning's music, and felt that I should give the Kevin Moore album a bit more attention, even if it doesn't rank quite as well as other Fates Warning material here on MA, while it ranks very well on RYM.

For me, Awake will always be the one. His contributions to that album are unsurpassed.

OSI's debut got a lot of spins back in the day. I even bought the CD, but although being made of top musicians, I feel they just missed a little bit of something to be actually great (and not just a Porcupine Tree clone).

On the other hand, Chroma Key is one of many bands/projects I'm just about to start listening, but never get around because there is so much of the good stuff out there.

Awake is a masterpiece. I fucking love that album. It brings me a lot of good memories as well, back when my life was simpler, and Kevin Moore is one of the main reasons, his playing goes straight to the heart.

A Pleasant Shade of Gray and Disconnected are interesting works. Kind of a minimalistic progressive rock, with a cool atmosphere.

Yeah, I'll also go with Awake. It's Dream Theater's best album and Kevin Moore is no small part of that. Jordan Rudess and Derek Sherinian are great players but Moore's melodic sensibilities are more nuanced and tasteful.

Awake I always find to be a little bloated. It's a little too over the place, a little too complex and proggy for the sake of it, for my taste. It's not a bad album, but it takes what I tend to like a little less about Dream Theater, and puts it in the foreground. I've always prefered Images and Words over it. Out of the three Kevin Moore DT albums, I&W was always my favorite. I'll have to relisten to When Dream and Day Unite, though.

Best: When Dream and Day Unite, Perfect Symmetry
Worst: probably (I don't really know the soundtracks he's done):

Chroma Key – Graveyard Mountain Home.

That one was a huge disappointment after "Dead Air for Radios" (classic!) and "You Go Now" (which was at least interesting with its fake vinyl clicks and numerous memorable melodies). It was mostly instrumental, boring, samey and it foregrounded one aspect of some of Moore's work I never liked: you can't really decide whether a song has a positive or a negative atmosphere. The whole "Graveyard" album smiles and frowns at the same time. It friles and smowns which results in a perverse listening experience culminating in the "educational film" included in the special edition… Yuck!

I love the music on Graveyard Mountain Home but I hate the samples from the movies and some of the other weird voice overs.

Weird. I feel like Metropolis Pt. 1, Take The Time and Learning to Live are more prog-excessiveness than just about anything on Awake. I love both albums though

I don't know, I find these songs you listed to be very melodic and the song-writing is never overshadowed by flashy tech/prog passages. Well, except on Under A Glass Moon, which is the track where I find the song-writing to take a backseat in favor of flashy instrumentation. Awake, on the other hand has a lot of good melodic moments, a lot of great song-writing moments that seem to get undercut by overly technical and flashy instrumentation that often takes the focus away from the actually decent/interesting song that's actually going on in the background. It feels kind of bloated to me. Like, I don't hate the album, but the other day I was listening to it with my girlfriend, and 3/4 of the way through I was saturated and decided to listen to something else. I never get that urge with Images and Words.

Agreed.
"Awake" just misses the spot more often than not.

Kevin Moore was very creative and I appreciated his approach to atmospheric textural playing on Dream Theater's "Space-Dye Vest" so much and wanted him to make more music in that vein. He does so to an extent with the OSI stuff but my favorite records with him remain Awake and A Pleasant Shade of Grey.

I really enjoyed A Pleasant Shade of Gray! Will definitely revisit the work of Fates Warning with him.

I'm listening to the first Chroma Key record now, and it's also quite enjoyable. Less progressive then Dream Theater and Fates Warning for sure, but Moore's style is still highly recognizable. It also gives me Pink Floyd and Genesis vibes on occasions. Good stuff