CD Review: Dream Theater - Octavarium

Octovarium is the New Jersey progressive metal band's eighth release. Although I'd been a fan since hearing 1994's "Awake", I've had trouble getting into the last couple of releases. I've come to the reluctant conclusion that the band had peaked with 1999's magnificent concept album "Scenes From a Memory", and it was all downhill from there.

Octovarium, though, is a significant improvement on it's rather mediocre predecessor, 2003's "Train of Though". The complex, widdly, and sometimes self-indulgent instrumental sections are still very much present, but this time it appears in the context of some actual songs.

They've been accused of ripping off Muse in one or two places; I can't hear that much of a resemblance myself. Saying that, the piano-led ballad "The Answer Lies Within" skirts the edge of Coldplay territory, and "I Walk Beside You" sounds more like U2 than U2, with James Labrie doing an uncanny impersonation of Bono. The rest of the album is much better; songs like "These Walls" and "Sacrificed Sons" typify the sort of epic progressive rock that made the band's name in the first place, while opener "Root of All Evil" and "Panic Attack" show the darker and more metallic side of their music. The awesome musicianship is evident all the way through; although DT might not be the best progressive rock band in the world, they're certainly the band with the best chops.

The album closes with the sort of 24 minute monster that only a prog band would attempt. The quiet opening section does sound a little too much like "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" for it's own good, but it develops into a well-structured epic. There's a frenetic instrumental passage, not so much a solo as all four instrumentalists going at it hammer-and-tongs with intertwining guitar, bass and keyboard lines. Finally the song ends with a majestic orchestral climax.

Overall verdict; not their best, but far from their worst. They may have peaked, but there's plenty of music left in them, though it's one of those albums you need to spin many times before you can fully appreciate it.