FALLING INTO INFINITY

A nice album, but not really a Dream Theater album. It has some good stuff, like "New Millennium", "Hell's Kitchen", "Anna Lee", and the best of all DT's music, "Trial of Tears". Other than those, the rest of the album is composed of radio friendly tunes that any other "whatever" band could have written. I do have to say though, the radio friendly stuff does sound alright, but it's just not the same as listening to their real, unedited stuff. People just need to expand their horizons a little bit, but I do understand the anger behind the words. "New Millennium" starts out normal DT, then sort of evolves into more of a standard metal piece, still, it holds some elements, and turns out to be a really good tune. You Not Me, a piece evolved from the unreleased "Raise the Knife"(for release see SCORE), is ok, but pretty much boring. "Peruvian Skies", again, an ok piece, but just a Metallica riff ("Enter Sandman") that has a couple of altered notes. To verify this, listen to the "Once In A Livetime" version where they actually play the Metallica riff live. "Hollow Years" put me to sleep. I know it's supposed to be this great, emotional song, but I'm not amongst the lovers group for this song. One of my least favorite DT tunes. "Burning My Soul" would've been good if it wasn't so repititious and didn't sound so much like the end of "Peruvian Skies". Fits in a little more with the image DT has, but it doesn't cut it for me. "Hell's Kitchen" was probably the biggest surprise of the album. Originally an instrumental section of "Burning My Soul" (which by the way is excellent unedited), this little instrumental shows what they were originally going for with this album before the label stepped in. Best instrumental next to "Dance of Eternity", and definately worth a listen. "Lines in the Sand" started off as one of my favorites, but the more I listen, the more I criticize it. It was cool to ask Doug Pinnick (King's X) to do some backing vocals, but you could only hear him every now and then, and when you could hear him, it was kind of annoying. I'm not saying he sings bad; quite the contrary, but his voice didn't really fit the style. I like the opening unison riff of the song, but other than that, the song can get quite monotonous. "Take Away My Pain" is a nice, soft ballad written about the passing of John Petrucci's father. Nice lyrics, nice songwriting, but popish all the same. Better track live (Again, Once in a Livetime). "Just Let Me Breathe" was a good switch after the nice ballad. I especially like the instrumentation towards the middle with the keyboard and guitar unison/harmonization. Quite the heavy, angry song about some gripes with MTV. Still, I guess it's worth a listen. "Anna Lee" is another standout. It's different from DT's style, but what they did was excellent. It's a good rock song with great piano and good slide guitar. Has quite the interesting lyrics with an odd backround (check DTfaq.com for the story). Still, a great song though it's not typical DT. That brings me to "Trial of Tears". It's by far the most amazing song Dream Theater has ever put out. It was written perfectly to fit John Myung's mysterious lyrics (which can be quite hard to interpret sometimes). Great intro, reminds you of the Rush great "Xanadu", with the fade in and guitar solo over the sustained chord. Excellent lyrics, great songwriting, awesome solos section, and wonderful ending. It's what makes the cd. I could go into way more detail on the song, but it's better to hear it for yourself. Overall, not a bad album. Not completely prog, but that doesn't make it bad. There are some good songs on it, and it's worth the buy just for "Hell's Kitchen" and "Trial of Tears". Not the best place to start if you're just getting into DT (I'd suggest "Images and Words" or "Scenes from a Memory" for that), but still a good addition to the DT fan's library and worth a listen every now and then. A 3.5, brings it to a four on the scale.