OCTAVARIUM

OK I agree mostly with what has been said in other reviews posted here. I wouldn't say Octavarium is a masterpiece (but I may change my mind with further reflection) mainly because its just too varied and I feel that this damages the flow of the album somewhat. The individual tracks are all damn good, though (with one exception that I'll come to in a moment) I'm not sure its healthy to show your influences so clearly. Both Panic Attack and Never Enough are great songs (Panic Attack being my fave on the CD at the moment) but Labrie's voice on both, especially the latter, is very much in the vein of Muse, who I like immensely, but they do a good enough job themselves. The tracks are not spoiled as musically they are quite different to Muse, but the vox can be a little uncanny at times. Labrie sounds great anyway (especially when he's not going for it to much), if he wants a new direction I would go with developing the ideas he had for Misunderstood on SDOIT. Having said all these nice things about DT's new opus I must now declare that this CD contains the track that the skip button was made for I HATE 'I Walk Beside You'; I listened to it once and shall never do so again (unless they are unwise enough to play it live). Its horrible, it sounds like U2, I mean JUST LIKE U2. It doesn't help that I really cant stand U2 I suppose, but come on why would John Petrucci want to play like 'the edge', who is a terribly boring guitarist, he's been playing the same jangly (see delay) riff for 20 years with different words over the top, and what exactly is this guy the edge of ? Bono can't sing either. I feel that they are lowering themselves severely with this track. Otherwise though a fantastic CD.