Octavarium

DreamTension · August 21, 2011, 06:53:08 PM

Quote from: KevShmev on August 21, 2011, 03:01:16 PM
Their least best CD to date. The title track is great (although not a top 10 DT song), but nothing else has any much staying power with me.

This is basically how I feel as well.

Metrovarium · August 21, 2011, 09:23:01 PM

It's my second favorite album, next to Images and Words. The only weak song, IMO, is Never Enough, which is still good. I love the vocals of most of the album (TROAE and Octavarium in particular) and I don't care if it has Muse or U2 influences, since it's a great album regardless of who influenced it.

KevShmev · August 21, 2011, 09:28:57 PM

I still don't know why anyone thinks OV has blatant U2 influences. I have been listening to U2 for over 25 years, and nothing on OV sounds that much like them to warrant the constant referrals to them. Not even I Walk Beside You.

BlobVanDam · August 21, 2011, 09:46:19 PM

Quote from: KevShmev on August 21, 2011, 09:28:57 PM
I still don't know why anyone thinks OV has blatant U2 influences. I have been listening to U2 for over 25 years, and nothing on OV sounds that much like them to warrant the constant referrals to them. Not even I Walk Beside You.

IWBY sounds extremely U2 to me. But I'm not at all a U2 fan.
And my theory is that songs sound more influenced by a band when you're not so familiar with the band, as I know you obviously are with U2. Likewise, I often see certain songs compared to Metallica that to me sound absolutely nothing like Metallica, because I'm familiar with the details of Metallica's style, so I know the particulars rather than just a general "vibe".

jayvee3 · August 21, 2011, 10:10:52 PM

I have things i love and things i have to work around on every album, 8V is no exception, but I feel I generally have to work around a bit more than the others. I really like the title track - though I dont rate it quite as highly as others on the boards, and the rest is a little patchy. TROAE is good, and starts out great, but I just find it runs out of steam a bit. May have worked better a bit shorter. TALW isn't necissarilly bad, just not that memorable IMO. Really, Really like TW, and IWBY is ok, but I prefer the live score version. Again, a bit like TALW, not horrible, but not particularly brilliant either. I really like PA though, this one is a 'lil ripper in my book. NE - like the riff, but I dunno - its a little patchy. SS is actually a good song - I often get the urge to skip it, but then when I listen to it, I cant really fault it. Overall, there are some good moments, but it does feel a little disjointed to me. With a little more care with some of the tracks (namely TALW, IWBY and NE), it could have been in the upper echelon. As it stands though, I feel it falls a little short - but there are some lovely moments..

ResultsMayVary · August 21, 2011, 11:55:10 PM

Does anyone still know where the good 'ole Octavarium analysis information is?

Reading that reminds me of how much I love that album (plus title track!).

SystematicThought · August 22, 2011, 12:00:20 AM

It won't let me load up that analysis....

black_biff_stadler · August 22, 2011, 12:07:12 AM

I finally like Octavaium, the song, after 2263 days of thinking it was their most horrifically overrated "epic." I still like every other epic of theirs better but at least this past friday I caught myself enjoying it for the first time ever. It may climb its way up the ranks though as I'm definitely being very openminded with it now.

fadetoblackdude7 · August 22, 2011, 12:42:13 AM

Great, great album. The title track is easily one of the best DT creations. Weakest song on the disc is Never Enough IMO.

Millais · August 22, 2011, 03:07:57 AM

Quote from: ResultsMayVary on August 21, 2011, 11:55:10 PM
Does anyone still know where the good 'ole Octavarium analysis information is?

here: https://bit.ly/p9xVom

Octavarium is one of the epics which i think is just perfect in terms of length and melody.

pogoowner · August 22, 2011, 03:17:52 AM

It's a pretty mediocre album. The title track and The Root of All Evil are very good. I Walk Beside You and The Answer Lies Within are okay. Sacrificed Sons and These Walls are sub-par. I don't care for Panic Attack. And Never Enough is one of the worst songs they've ever released.

ResultsMayVary · August 22, 2011, 07:08:58 AM

Quote from: Millais on August 22, 2011, 03:07:57 AM
Quote from: ResultsMayVary on August 21, 2011, 11:55:10 PM
Does anyone still know where the good 'ole Octavarium analysis information is?

here: https://bit.ly/p9xVom

Octavarium is one of the epics which i think is just perfect in terms of length and melody.

That link was not displaying late night, hence why I asked.

tgstk2 · August 22, 2011, 07:40:18 AM

Worst dt album i havent listened to it in years fii >8v

krands85 · August 22, 2011, 08:03:06 AM

Half the album is awesome - 8vm, SS, TROAE and Panic Attack. The other half isn't that great, but the highs more than make up for the lows so it's probably my 3rd favourite DT album.

fleaman · August 22, 2011, 09:03:37 AM

I like the album a lot except for the self-titled song which i find it really boring!

DejaVu · August 22, 2011, 09:06:38 AM

8VM is great! It's an 8/10 album to me, it's also one I've played to death and still haven't got bored. I find it (personally) one of the more enjoyable and up-beat albums from DT, and one of my favourites to sing along to. 8VM boasts some of the best chorus's the band has wrote to date, and musically it's a really varied collection.

It does have its flaws, but I'm not sure why everyone beats down on the album so much. It could've been better off without TALW, the track tries to be 'Another Day' #2, and fails completely, I could say it's one of the bands weakest tracks. It also kills the flow of 8VM to me, it should've been left towards the end. I always find albums better if they start with a bang, and gradually become more emotional and melancholic towards the finale.

I also think SS doesn't fit in that well, it's a brilliant song, but it's structured/sounds more traditional DT than the other tracks.

Oh and the title track is amazing, do I need to say more?

LieLowTheWantedMan · August 22, 2011, 09:07:51 AM

Quote from: fleaman on August 22, 2011, 09:03:37 AM
I like the album a lot except for the self-titled song which i find it really boring!

Mr. Beale · August 22, 2011, 02:03:50 PM

Very funny how wildly opinions very about 8vm. Personally I think it's great and one of the better DT album. Sacrificed Sons is the only song I don't care for, and TALW isn't the most memorable (although it fits within the flow of the album). Everything else is good (Panic, Never Enough) to great (teh rest).

Dublagent66 · August 22, 2011, 02:15:18 PM

Take out NE and the album is 10x better. I don't listen to it much anymore.

Gadough · August 22, 2011, 02:30:40 PM

It's my 3rd favorite after Scenes and Six Degrees. I absolutely love it, from top to bottom.

The Letter M · August 22, 2011, 03:20:48 PM

Love it. It was the band's first new album after I became a fan, and getting into their first seven albums, hearing an album like 8VM was really interesting.

At the time, I was really expecting something heavy, hearing what the band had done on SFAM and the heavy stuff on SDOIT, and then the whole ass-and-balls-to-the-walls metal madhouse that is TOT, I was quite surprised when "The Answer Lies Within" came on after the rocking "The Root Of All Evil", but it was a beautiful song and I enjoy it a lot. Sure it's no "Hollow Years", but it's a step above "Through Her Eyes" in the soft ballad department. Then it was "These Walls", which I have grown to like NOW, but back then, it was a skipper-track for me. Following that was the up-beat pop song "I Walk Beside You", which has MP doing his Coldplay-"Clocks" impression, and it's a very singable/sing-along song and I've played it for friends who've never heard of DT and they love it. It could've been a really hit single had it been promoted properly.

"Panic Attack" was an instant love, and it was more like DT that I had come to like through SFAM/SDOIT/TOT. The mid-length full-on progmetal tour-de-force! I love MP's drumming in the song, and of course, everyone else's playing is top notch. Great song with interesting lyrics. "Never Enough" was also instantly liked, I enjoyed the fast-rock sound, and I hadn't been familiar with Muse as of yet (not until 2-3 years later actually), so I didn't care about the band's influences at all. It's just a fun song to play and listen to, and to even sing with. I love the instrumental section the most! Then the creepy cross-fade section with the changing-channels and samples really set up "Sacrificed Sons" really well. I felt SS executed really well what the band tried to do with "Endless Sacrifice" - frame a heavy instrumental section with a ballad-type piece around it. The string section is what pops out to me the most, especially at the end.

"Octavarium"...well, I'm a prog fan more than a metal fan, so pretty much EVERYTHING about this song excites me, from the overly-long intro, to the corny lyrics in "Full Circle", so the vintage-sounding keyboard solo just before it, to the build-up to "Razor's Edge"...everything about the song just hits all the right spots for me, and the live version really shines on SCORE. The most fun I had was figuring out all the words in the lyrics and where they came from in "Full Circle", and then hearing the samples in "Intervals" behind each "step". It's just a fun-filled song with a lot of great playing, like JM's bass playing in "Medicate (Awakening)", or Rudess' solo after that, and MP's playing in "Full Circle" and "Intervals", JLB's vocals leading up to and at "TRAPPED INSIDE THIS OCTAVARIUM!!!", and of course JP's guitar solo in "Razor's Edge"!

Definitely one of my top 3 DT albums as of right now. I wonder if I would have felt the same had I became a fan before or after it...like if my first new DT album release was TOT, or if it was SC, would I have loved 8VM the same? Hmmm...

-Marc.

MasterShakezula · August 22, 2011, 03:26:21 PM

I'd say it's probably the best they've done since 6.

The title track is amazing (obviously), and Root of All Evil, These Walls, and Sacrificed Sons are also top-notch.

Though the two short, poppy songs, TALW/IWBY, often get a lot of shit, I say they're great in their own right, particularly IWBY, as I enjoy U2 very much.

Panick Attack is a bit over-heavy/mechanical for my taste, and Never Enough isn't specacular, but overall, Eigthalbum is one of DT's finest.

Obfuscation · August 22, 2011, 10:39:26 PM

All I can say is that it's a top 5 album for me and that every song in it except one is at least great with 2 of them being awesome of course and that one song that is not great is TALW. I still think is a great album and just about everytime I listen to it, I listen to the whole thing without stop.

ZirconBlue · August 23, 2011, 06:32:55 AM

I like that the album has a lot of variety to it, but I think that's why it gets such a "meh" reaction from a lot of people. There are a lot of people in this thread saying they like some songs, but not others, but when you look at the specific songs each person is saying they like/dislike, there's a lot of disagreement about which songs are "good" and which are "bad".

For example:

Quote from: weezul on August 21, 2011, 02:16:54 PM
every time i listen to this, its TROE straight into Octavarium. I listened to it non stop when I first got into DT but now only those two songs have staying power, with Octavarium still my favourite DT tune of all time.

These are my two least favorite songs on the album. TROAE, mostly because of the lack of a solid chorus. If the "Never could have just a part of it. . ." part were used for a chorus throughout, I'd probably like it better.

Octavarium has two flaws that seriously downgrade my opinion of it: (A) The continuum intro goes on way too long, and (2) it bugs me that the lyrics of the different sections are completely unrelated to each other.

That said, I still "like" both of those songs, I just don't "love" them.

BlobVanDam · August 23, 2011, 06:39:33 AM

Quote from: ZirconBlue on August 23, 2011, 06:32:55 AM
I like that the album has a lot of variety to it, but I think that's why it gets such a "meh" reaction from a lot of people. There are a lot of people in this thread saying they like some songs, but not others, but when you look at the specific songs each person is saying they like/dislike, there's a lot of disagreement about which songs are "good" and which are "bad".

The way I think of it is that it's varied almost to a fault. The first 5 tracks alternate between pretty heavy, and very soft. I like most of the album quite a bit, but when you have a soft slow ballad or a pop rock song sandwiched between two fairly heavy tracks, it's going to break the flow for a lot of people (that, and I don't think the softer songs on the album are among DT's better songs). I think the majority of the album is good, but the songs I don't like as much are strategically placed to disrupt the flow of the ones I love.

BlackInk · August 23, 2011, 06:51:02 AM

I really like it, the facts obtained by me shows that it is my third fav Dream Theater album. There are many different styles running through the album and it finishes it of with the absolutely briliant title song.

tofee35 · August 23, 2011, 08:53:58 AM

Octavarium is a good album with no great songs on it. I think it's their shallowest album and everything is on the surface. Besides all of the silly nuggets that are intentionally placed, the music itself doesn't take much to get. Unlike their other albums, I don't hear something different or inspiring out of every listen. I'm also on the "Octavarium (the song) is wildly overrated" train although I do like it. All of that being said, I do love the variety and mood of the album. It's very enjoyable to listen to at worst.

News:

Octavarium