OCTAVARIUM

This turned out to be a disappointment for me. It seems to me that Dream Theater are turning from Prog-Metal to Pop-Metal. Okay, not quite, but there is a pop-tendency in some of the songs, and Dream Theater doing pop music doesn't excite me that much. Certainly the band has changes it's sound from Train of Thought, but in my opinion for the worse.

I really don't care for the first six songs. There are slower songs, like "The Answer Lies Within" and "I Walk Beside You", but they don't work and end up sounding too cheesy. Some reviewers have mentioned U2, and when a prog band starts to sound like U2, it can't be good. Dream Theater have had the same problem with their ballads earlier as well, just look at Hollow Years for example, and you get my point. Then there are some heavier songs, like Panic Attack, and I don't like them either. They sound very uninspired and kind of forced, and definitely are not very proggy, more like modern heavy metal than anything.

"Sacrificed Sons" and the title track, "Octavarium", however, make up for some of the disappointment. "Sacrificed Sons" is a brief return to the past, a breath of pre-Train of Thought air. A nice prog metal track, apparently based on 9/11. "Octavarium" is still the highlight, a multi-part epic which serves as an honour to some of the bands that have influenced Dream Theater, such as Pink Floyd and The Beatles.

To sum it up; not very good overall, but the epics save some of it. 2+ is quite accurate.