Former DREAM THEATER drummer, Mike Mangini, has officially announced the release date for his debut solo album, “Invisible Signs”
Collaborating with Mike Mangini on this LP are a talented ensemble of musicians, including Tony Dickinson on bass, Ivan Keller on guitar, Gus G. (known for his work with FIREWIND and OZZY OSBOURNE) on lead guitar, and the former EVANESCENCE guitarist, Jen Majura, lending her vocal prowess.
Earlier today (Thursday, October 26), Mike Mangini shared the “Invisible Signs” cover artwork and track listing to social media, which included the caption: “I’m so happy to finally announce the date for the release of my upcoming album #InvisibleSigns coming your way on 11/11/23.
Swipe left to see the full tracklist! Can’t wait for all of you to hear it!! Don’t forget to pre-order your autographed physical copies clicking the link in my bio… you can also pre-save it in its digital format.”
Mike Mangini “Invisible Signs” track listing:
01. Freak Of Nature
02. Invisible Signs
03. Habit To Change
04. Not Drowning
05. Deep Inside
06. Saying Sorry
07. So Alive
08. Glamorous Shades
09. It’s Noise
10. Let Me Shine
11. Seek And Find
12. Black Box
Mike Mangini has already dropped two tracks from “Invisible Signs”, being “Freak Of Nature” and “Not Drowning”.
Discussing the lyrical inspiration for the new track “Not Drowning”, Mike said: “While listening to the chorus part of this song sometime in 2018, I heard word sounds in my mind and the word ‘drowning’ fit it pretty well. I didn’t want to write about it literally though. I used a thesaurus and the internet to find related words and topics because my lyrics are never about personal events or stories. Searching terms related to ‘drowning’ eventually led me to the word ‘confusion.’
“That made me think of the confusion surrounding the findings of Quantum Mechanics. I found instances of physicists and mathematicians saying that the test results seemed strange and ‘wrong,’ and that they could not reconcile it with their view of reality. Some said there are things about it we cannot know, or maybe are not supposed to know.
“It seemed to me that spending too much time immersing oneself in it can make a person crazy. Einstein died confounded by it spending countless hours trying to recocile it with the reality he knew. The myriad of unfounded conjectures outside the physics community conjured up a comedy skit in my mind. The lines ‘Not Drowning’ and ‘I will breathe’ each relate to the hope of clearing away what is blurring the reality of something in all kinds of situations.
“For a song lyric, I suspected that singing about physics wouldn’t be as fun as the idea of jumping in a saltwater pool. I needed a descriptive location for it. ‘Backyard’ didn’t work, so I used the word ‘nation’ because everyone lives in one. That word led me to ‘radiation,’ as that’s what heats up a pool and has a cool sound to it when sung. Mainly, words come to me as sounds, then I search around and form something cohesive, but try not to sacrifice how the words sound.
“I thought this might be interesting to know about. At the end of the day, however, it’s just a song for rocking out!
“And then there’s the simultaneous 7/8 in Common Time and a wild solo section for the Musos!”
Mike Mangini‘s journey with DREAM THEATER began in late 2010 when he secured the drumming throne after a widely publicized audition. This audition followed the departure of Mike Portnoy, a co-founder of DREAM THEATER, who had been with the band for more than 30 years. Mangini faced stiff competition, triumphing over six other world-class drummers, including Marco Minnemann, Virgil Donati, Aquiles Priester, Thomas Lang, Peter Wildoer, and Derek Roddy. This three-day audition process was documented in a reality-style show called “The Spirit Carries On.”
Before becoming a part of the DREAM THEATER legacy, Mike Mangini had already made a name for himself in the hard rock scene in the mid-1990s through his work with EXTREME. He later found himself playing alongside the legendary guitar virtuoso Steve Vai in 1996. Nearly a decade down the road, Mangini transitioned to a full-time teaching role at the renowned Berklee College Of Music.