Octavarium is the eighth studio album by Progressive Metal band Dream Theater and was released in 2005. Also, fun bit of trivia, it was the last album recorded at The Hit Factory, which was a famous recording studio known for albums such as Paul Simon's Graceland and most of Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA, and was allegedly the studio John Lennon was walking home from the evening he was murdered. The album itself did very well, reaching number 2 on both the Finnish and Italian album charts, number 10 on the Japanese Albums Chart, number 15 on the Canadian Albums Chart and number 36 on the Billboard 200, but reached its lowest on the UK Albums Chart peaking only at number 72.
If you want a perfect way to start your album, take notes on the opening track "The Root of All Evil" which does have a pretty techno opening, but give it time and it will kick in. The guitar work by John Petrucci is just incredible and James LaBrie's vocal work, although a little quiet, is still showcased well in the song. It is then followed by "The Answer Lies Within" which offers a bit of variety, and this is only the second track. It is very calm and soft, but it is still a great song.
It is around the fourth track "I Walk Beside You" that I really start to notice the amazing thing about this album. It isn't that the songs are just incredible, but that no song ever meshes with another. Something similar happened when I was listening to the following track "Panic Attack" when I realized how perfectly suited James LaBrie's voice was to the music Dream Theater made.
But what really makes this album all the most amazing for me are the final two tracks. The first of them being "Sacrificed Sons" which begins with what I guess is terrorist attack reports. It is followed by slow instrumentals and soft vocals, but then transitions really nicely into a harder song, going into a lovely instrumental with good bass work by John Myung. The song itself builds on itself and drops occasionally, but I like when some songs drop, because that often gives the chance to build higher. However, my favourite song on the album was the eighth and final track, the titular track "Octavarium".
Not only is it my favourite song on the album, it is one of my favourite songs period. it is in my top ten and for good reason. The song can be very mind melting, especially towards the beginning with the slow build up of the instruments and a swift kick with an amazing guitar riff. The following acoustics give the listener a breath while the song builds up again with five separate movements, kind of like classical music. Each movement builds upon the last and transitions using instrumentals. The first two movements tell a story while the third is kind of an abstract collection of progressive and classic rock references. The third movement is in my opinion, my favourite of the five movements. Even though the fourth movement has my favourite moment in the song. It's when LaBrie is singing the lines "Trapped inside this octavarium" and there are a lot of little touches and details that really stand out. It is hands down the longest song on the album being exactly 24 minutes in length, but I personally felt as if just a few minutes went by, at the vey least five or six.
I can not stress how much I love this album. So far, it may be my favourite album of all time, and considering that I have Holy Diver, Dark Side of the Moon and Dark Sky Island, that is saying quite a bit, and I barely touched upon some of the other great tings like Mike Portnoy's amazing drumming and Jordan Rudess on the Keyboards. If you haven't heard this album yet, go do it.
For the awesome instrumentals and pure talent of the band members, I give this album a 10/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment