OCTAVARIUM

Dream Theater's most recent release, "Octavarium", was a disappointment to me. By this point, DT seem bored out and more reliant on their name than on their songwriting, while having the idea of blending pop/rock with retro-prog, and at it's worst, ends up sounding like U2 collaborating with a prog band.. Ordered this album together with Meshuggah's 'Catch 33' and that album sounded like a band that actually progressed forward. This DT album sounds rushed and too blatant on it's influences, and while there are good stuff here as well I rather prefer their previous three albums.

The heaviness is also toned significantly down for this one. The epic retro-prog title track was for the most part enjoyable and fun (with some twisted moments in the latter half), but tracks such as 'Answer Lies Within' and 'I Walk Beside You' just harkens back to the worst songs from FII and SFAM, while 'Root' and 'Panic Attack' at least have some good energy to them. Other tracks definitely have their moments, and the album is very cleverly put together, but musically it feels like this is too safe play from DT overall. 2.5/5