TRAIN OF THOUGHT

This is a really heavy album taken as a whole. I feel that Dream Theater lost the sense of melody here for the sake of trying to be as heavy as possibly. I do lose interest on some of the guitar solos which seem to go on without any sense of structure. "Endless Sacrifice" and "Vacant" are softer tracks but they don't grab the attention either.

The album does have a couple of redeeming features though. "As I Am" has a catchy tune and "Stream of Conciousness" is a good instrumental. All in all though, this was a disappointing album. I was very pleased when Octavarium came out to find that Dream Theater would not be continuing along this ultra-heavy route for ever.