OCTAVARIUM

Now, this is a great record. Don't expect a SFaM kind of album, but I must say this album is a great pice of work. This was actually the album that made me like this band. The album that introduced me to it was SfaM, but it wasn't until I listened to Octavarium that I became a DT fan. After becoming a fan of this record, I started to listen to Metropolis part II (SfaM) and grew on it more and more. And eventually, I got most of their studio works and some live stuff. But, the album that started my really being a fan was this one.

1-The Root of all Evil: Parts 6 and 7 of Mike Portnoy's AA saga. Very mysterious intro with some stuff from "The Clock-work Orange". The "This dying soul" riff can be heard softly, and then it builds in until the actual song openes the album. Very cool riff with heavy guitars doubled by keyboards. The vocals sound very clean and agressive. The chorus takes away the agressive element for a while, accompained by nice piano. The middle section provides some nice soloing, first Rudess with the lead sound and then Petrucci. Nice piano in the end.

2-The Answer Lies Within: This one openes the more "commercial" part of the album. Starts with some calm background noises and then the piano comes in playing an easy melody. The song is pretty mellow, with nice strings (real strings). Nothing too complex, but a very nice ballad.

3-These Walls: This is the least commercial of the 3 more "commercial" songs here. Starts with really heavy guitar effects that create a kind of motor-bike sound. Then a cool riff comes in and some nice thick keyboards are heard. Overall, it's a very nice piece, full of nice sounds and very well organized. The vocals are great and there's a little guitar solo in the middle. No complex soloing here, but great tune.

4- I Walk Beside You: This one is the most commercial and the least interesting. It sounds pretty much like U2, except for the riff maybe. No solos. It's a good tune, but no usual DTcomplexity, whatsoever.

5-Panic Attack: This is one of the 3 more metal songs (Root of all Evil and Never Enough, being the other two). One of the best compositions. With very fast tempo and complex time signatures and changes. The vocals show this "Panic Attack" feeling, they're really expressive. John Myung plays some cool bass parts, here. The soloing part is also good, but I kinda feel they needed more space it was done too quickly, maybe.

6-Never Enough: Some weird syth effects can be heard, that's really cool. Not much to say about this one. Cool soloing and stuff, you know.

7-Sacrificed Sons: Ohhhh...now this is awesome! One of my favourite Dt pieces. It's about the 9/11 incident. The beginig is really touching, especially when you know what it's talking about. Full orchestra accompains the band and creates a really moving sound. The instrumental section is just musical genious! John Myung sets the mood to start this section with a cool bass riff. The orchestra combined with everything else is just amazing. Awesome Jordan Rudess keyboard solo, and John Petrucci guitar solo, which sounds pretty experimental. Awesome!

8-Octavarium: Uhh!!! now...the best part! A 24 minute super epic. I think that this is pretty much symphonic prog. It sometimes carries you back to the 70's prog sound with a lot of Pink Floyd, Genesis and Yes influence. Jordan Rudess shines here. He does mostly all the intro, introducing the inovative continuum fingerboard. Then he plays some lap steel guitar. The orchestra is also present here. Nice 12-string guitar accompained by piano and soft vocals can be heard in the first section "Someone like him". Pay special attention to the part that goes "...missing out this time.....{drums solwly come in}..As far as I could tell, there's nothing more I need" oh, God, it gave me shivers when I first heard it! A lot of things to talk about from this epic. Like the instrumental parts in the begining and end of "Full Circle", with awesome synth wich sound pretty Rick Wakeman, and also some Genesis influence. The part before "Intervals" is one of the best DT intrumentals, sometimes bright, sometimes dark. Really fast guitars, bass, drums complex keyboards and time signatures. Portnoy really does an amazing job, here. This part creates, in a way, the same effect of the instrumental part on Genesis' "Supper's Ready" before the "666" part. Colossal ending with "Razor's Edge". Pretty similar to the "Supper's Ready" ending. Nice vocal harmonies and wonderful guitar solo by Petrucci.

So, overall this is pretty much a summary of Dt's elements: The more heavy side, the virtuosic element, some of the more commercial, the more symophonic, epic style. Like Petrucci said "If you wanna know what Dream Theater is all about, just play that CD". Maybe the ammount of more easy going material lowers the final mark a bit. And I sometimes feel that, as they want to show all the basic elements of the band, it's not all so focused. Sometimes I feel the solos are done too quickly. But, anyway that's no big deal, it's the perfect album for DT beginners and an excellent addition to any prog music collection. PS: There are 5 star songs in here. I think they are: Root of all Evil, Sacrificed Sons and Octavarium. The 3 of them are included on their live masterpiece "Score", fortunately.