John Petrucci breaks down the main riff to Dream Theater's Invisible Monster in new Guitar World lesson

Last week, Dream Theater treated fans to Invisible Monster, the second single from their forthcoming 15th studio album, A View From The Top Of The World.

A harrowing mid-tempo rocker that documents the effects of prolonged battles with anxiety, it finds the band's resident electric guitar genius, John Petrucci, in killer form, leading the track off with a haunting, delay-coated opening riff, giving the first verse some heft with titanium-like chugs, and topping things off with a light-speed solo.

Recently, the Guitar World team ventured out to Long Island, New York to meet up with Petrucci at his studio, where he kindly took us through the writing process, theory and musical themes of Invisible Monster, particularly its main riff and motif. You can check out the mini-lesson above.

"This song came out of us wanting to write a song that was – for lack of a better term – mid-tempo, after having written a whole bunch of songs that were very proggy, very dark and instrumentally-driven," Petrucci told Guitar World.

"This song came really naturally to us right from the get-go as soon as we had the tempo."

Set for an October 22 release via InsideOutMusic/Sony Music, A View From The Top Of The World was produced by Petrucci, with engineering and additional production by James “Jimmy T” Meslin.

To preorder the album, stop by Dream Theater's website.