TRAIN OF THOUGHT

The album opens with "As I am" and the first thing I noticed was the Black Sabbath song by Black Sabbath (on their debut album) just the riff speeded up. Highly unoriginal. "This Dying Soul" has some great drumming by Portnoy but the song is just too long, in fact most of the songs here are just too long and could have a few minutes taken out in order to keep the listeners attention. "Endless Sacrifice" is the first really good song on the album, a song about how much John Petrucci misses his wife, but some of the lyrics are just plain silly "Why I chose this superficial life" for example. "Honor thy father" is quite good with some really bitter lyrics by Portnoy! Great drumming throughout! "Vacant" is a short and depressing song yet it works well in capturing the emotion of a love that is fading. "Stream of consciousness" starts out well but gets boring quickly. Petrucci´s solo sounds really uninspired, then Rudess runs along with him in unison. "In the name of God" just comes across as a cheesy song. (Although many say it is a classic) The whole album just sounds too planned, as if they planned to make their darkest heaviest album. Octavarium was such a big step up from this! But for the phenomenal drumming I have to give it at least three stars.