That's only after Smith came back, and their solos are rarely overdone. It's odd you keep bringing up Maiden when I use the second album's pic, which should be a sign of which period I prefer.
DT sounds over-produced and technical for the sake of being technical, like Malmsteen. The music just doesn't sound that good, which is why their following is so much smaller than other bands.
And yet are still overdone, all the same.
Funny, again, you bring up Maiden only doing it sometimes, that's the same thing I said about Dream Theater. They're technically more skilled, so they show it, but they make amazing music too, just like Maiden. They don't just wank all the time.
Solos can often be an over-indulgence in ones own abilities anyway.
Murray has been doing his own legato version of wanking forever. That's his style.
And LOL at you defending yourself as being "just a fan of their early stuff"
DT have an early history where they didn't over-indulge as much too, their first few albums, some of the tracks I posted already are from those albums, yet too you "All their songs sound like a protracted circle jerk with each guy trying to outdo the others."
That statement was wrong, bottom line.
Here's some of their best songs from Awake where they aren't wanking much at all outside of the solos.
They have alot of songs that don't overindulge.
Malmsteen overinduldged 99% of the time btw. His first album was entirely him playing fast leads.
DT don't do that, they actually compose a song and throw some interesting pieces in there, at the end of the day there's still a core song that they focus on, it's not just a bunch of wankery.
And I honestly don't care who's more popular.
I will point out though, Maiden started 10 years before and were active/part of the revival of Heavy Metal, so it's no wonder they have a bigger fan base, it's not about who's better necessarily. The guys have put in more years of touring and were fortunate to have been part of a time when Metal was big.
Dream Theater didn't release their second album until the early 90's when grunge took over, so...