John Petrucci: New Dream Theater Album "in the Home Stretch"

Dream Theater are hard at work recording their upcoming studio album, the followup to 2011's A Dramatic Turn Of Events.

The band recently shared two of guitarist John Petrucci's Facebook posts:

"Just finished my final lyric for the new DT album. I start solos in about a week. Time to put down the pen and get to the woodshed!"

... and ...

"In the home stretch on the DT sessions! All vocals are done. Cutting solos."

In a recent interview with Roadrunner Records, Petrucci had this to say:

"First of all, it's been going great with [Mike Mangini], and as much as we've been a band together for about 15 years, we haven't really experienced that process together. We've been in the studio for a few weeks now, and he's been amazing. Chemistry is great, the writing process and the whole vibe is great, and his role is to let his personality shine as a drummer, creatively and to have his input and his musical personality really come through. And I gotta tell you, it's happening.

"When people hear the drumming on this album, they're gonna be pretty freaked out. On the last album, he did a great job, but he wasn't there for the writing process and he was interpreting drum parts that I had programmed. Even though he used his creativity, of course, to change them up and do his thing, I feel like now he's just Mike Mangini unleashed. It's all him. It's all his creativity, all his decisions and ideas and man, the guy's an animal."

The album is expected to be released this summer by Roadrunner Records. Stay tuned for updates as we get them!