OCTAVARIUM

After an album which saw their "prog" side cranked up to 11 (Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence) and one which saw them give more prominence to their metal side (Train of Thought), Dream Theater used Octavarium to slam the two halves together and recombine them in a way which feels simultaneously familiar and different.

Take, for instance, opening track The Root of All Evil - sure, you've got all the band members present and correct and doing more or less what they do best, but there's a different air to it. James LaBrie's vocal performance isn't as up- front and bombastic as we might expect for such an aggressive track - instead he's this sort of elusive presence lurking in the depths, like a transmission from somewhere far away and more than a little malevolent.

Then from the murk comes clarity, in the form of moving ballad The Answer Lies Within - the sort of material which could very easily cross the line into being cheesy, were not not clearly heartfelt. Again, LaBrie deserves applause here - from the murk of Root of All Evil he suddenly steps forward into a spotlight of crystal-clear clarity, and he absolutely nails it.

The song benefits from the sensitive addition of a string quartet, and isn't the only time on the album the band bring on some guests - the last 35 minutes or so of the album (accounting for a bit under half the running time) is performed alongside an orchestra, who add a classical touch to the concluding tracks, the 10 minute Sacrificed Sons and the 24 minute epic title track of the album. The former track is a 9/11 thinkpiece, though once the news snippets at the start die down it's a general enough anti-war sentiment to rise above that; Octavarium itself is a meandering, somewhat self-indulgent/self-celebratory piece which ends up being more endearing than I'm making it sound largely through sheer chutzpah.

As well as the inclusion of the orchestra, the album is notable for a new mellowness entering Dream Theater's music - captured on tracks like The Answer Lies Within or during the verses of These Walls, it's these moments of tranquility shot through with an underlying tension which gets across the idea that these moments of peace are fragile things, always at the risk of being shattered. (In other moments, they go absolutely frantic; Panic Attack and Never Enough sound like Dream Theater doing Muse better than Muse were by this point in time.) On the whole, Octavarium finds Dream Theater continuing their stylistic evolution in magnificent form.