OCTAVARIUM

In my opinion, Dream Theater's Octavarium has what it takes to be a Masterpiece, and get 5 stars. However, I understand that there are those who don't have the same tastes as me so I'm giving it a 4 just in case. Octavarium was my very first album I heard of Dream Theater. I saw Dream Theater on Vampirefreaks.com with only one song, Constant Motion on the player, and I thought they were just an average heavy metal band. However, while looking at Pink Floyd on Wikipedia, I saw that they were influenced by Pink Floyd, read about them, and realized that had some epic compositions and surreal album artwork, and were called Progressive Metal.

Upon seeing a 24 minute song on Octavarium, I went to the store and bought it on impulse, a little afraid of what I'd hear. It was not only a random impulsive purchase, but I had never even heard the band before.

I heard The Root of all Evil, and was kinda convinced that they weren't that progressive until a certain Keyboard solo within it, around the 5:30 minutes mark. I was particularly amazed by the Keyboardist's skill. As the next song flowed in seamlessly (something I love in progressive albums) It was very quiet and uplifting sounding, and I was confused. It went from Heavy to very mellow. And the next song was heavy again, but with a very progressive feel. I realized the 3rd song in, that Dream Theater was very diverse. Each song had a different style. And as I listened to it, I was amazed by the musicians' skill at their respective instruments.

I got out of the car and popped the CD out at the end of track 7, just before the epic magnum opus Octavarium, so I immediately went in and listened to it. The beginning reminded me of one of my favourite epic prog compositions, Shine on You crazy Diamond, by Pink Floyd. And the album's cover totally seemed to remind me of the song. Octavarium (the song) has everything from progressive Pink Floyd-ish sounds, to acoustic ballads, psychedelic passages, heavy metal riffs, chaotic sounding instrumental parts, a wonderful Orchestra, and an amazingly epic climax and outro that interestingly looped right back around to the first song. I was VERY impressed.

Amazingly, the album got me obsessed with Dream Theater, but I found later that it was no match to some of their other earlier stuff. I would say that this is the perfect album to start with if you're completely new to Dream Theater. Any prog fan would love this album... but only if they can tolerate heavy metal as well. Which, being progressive rock fans, we're pretty much open to lots of new experiences anyway.

Great album, and an excellent addition to any prog music collection.