Dream Theater released A View from the Top of the World on October 22, 2021. Their 15th studio album was the first recorded at DTHQ, the band's own recording and rehearsal facility on Long Island. With touring halted by the pandemic, they had a place to work together and room to let the songs grow.
John Petrucci arrived without his usual stockpile of ideas. He had already written his solo album Terminal Velocity and another Liquid Tension Experiment record, and told Guitar World he worried he might have exhausted his supply. Playing with the band settled that concern. “The Alien” was the first song they wrote, eventually becoming the album's opening track and first single.
Petrucci, keyboardist Jordan Rudess, bassist John Myung and drummer Mike Mangini worked together in New York while James LaBrie joined from his home studio in Canada over Zoom. LaBrie told Loudwire that he could mute the session, record a melody and share it without interrupting the other musicians. In March 2021, he traveled to New York, quarantined and recorded his vocals with Petrucci, allowing them to make adjustments together as they worked.
Having their own building helped the rest of the process, too. DTHQ combined equipment storage with a studio, rehearsal room and spaces where the band could spend the day. LaBrie later told Full Metal Jackie that limiting the people coming through the facility allowed them to concentrate on writing. The musicians could settle into their own space and keep working through ideas. Petrucci produced the album, James “Jimmy T” Meslin handled engineering and additional production, and Andy Sneap mixed and mastered it.
“Awaken the Master” gave Petrucci a new instrument to explore. He told Guitar World that an Ernie Ball Music Man prototype arrived during the sessions, leading to his first recording with an eight string guitar. Its lower range offered new possibilities while familiar scale shapes still worked. Chords required more adjustment. On “Sleeping Giant,” his solos allowed for improvisation within an arrangement that mapped out when he and Rudess would lead, answer each other or play together.
The closing title track made the scale of their plans clear. At 20 minutes and 24 seconds, it occupied a substantial part of a seven song album. LaBrie told Full Metal Jackie that deciding to write an extended title track helped establish the direction for the whole record. They wanted enough space to experiment, and an energetic album that offered them a release from the pandemic outside. “We're not confined to a particular style,” he said.
Its subject matched that appetite for a challenge. In his separate interview with Loudwire's Jordan Blum, LaBrie explained that the title track concerned people deliberately pushing themselves to their limits, including thrill seekers risking their lives. That idea also guided Hugh Syme's cover artwork.
The opening track supplied a career milestone. In 2022, “The Alien” won Best Metal Performance at the Grammy Awards. It was Dream Theater's first Grammy win, following earlier nominations for “On the Backs of Angels” and “The Enemy Inside.”
