73 THE DARK ETERNAL NIGHT

Dream Theater

Prog-metallers Dream Theater have built a 35-year career upon Herculean levels of musicianship, and also an ability to write songs that tell stories. At almost nine minutes long, The Dark Eternal Night boasted a brilliant juddering guitar riff – voted by readers of Total Guitar magazine as the fourth-finest of the decade – and its storyline of a pharaoh that returns to life as a rampaging monster was conceived by guitarist John Petrucci after reading HP Lovecraft’s short story Nyarlathotep. DL

From: Systematic Chaos, 2007