OCTAVARIUM

I have stated countless times before that Dream Theater is my favorite band of all time. It may seem cliche, but I can't help it; they're great. This album is in the middle of a slouch period for the band, however. After their wonderful masterpiece Scenes from a Memory, the band slowly declined with less and less creative music. They still retained their wonderfully progressive and dynamic music, however, which is great. The band, although leaning towards much more popularly accessible melodies, have still retained a wonderful sense of progression and melodic grace. And of course, the massive title track is easily one of my favorite Dream Theater songs of all time, and a fantastic display of the band's technical, compositional, and progressive skill.

At this point the majority of the music appearing on this album seems like your generic progressive metal, but in reality the band has crafted some truly spectacular, melodically dense music. While some (most notably I Walk Beside You) have some obviously popularly leaning melodies, the music is still progressive and very much good. The band crafts some really cool stuff on this album, despite being pretty cliche.

However, this album is really made by the title track. The massive, 24 minute giant is truly the quintessential Dream Theater track: long, dynamic, inclusive of everything good about progressive music, some interesting (but not fantastic) lyrics, and an overall truly incredible vibe.

Overall, this is in no way Dream Theater's best work. However, this album is still indicative of a band who is willing to grow with the music industry while at the same time sticking to the roots that got them where they are. The album has pockets of genius, with an incredibly creative lose musical concept, some truly creative musical moments, and an overall inviting atmosphere. In the end, this is certainly a good Dream Theater release, and continued the band along the beaten path of progressive metal. 4 stars.

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