Falling Into Infinity is extremely underrated

[Yazman]

I used to think Falling Into Infinity sucked, but the thing that made me click with it was hearing Hollow Years during the BC&SL tour in Brisbane, it was absolutely amazing. I went home and just played HY on repeat over and over for like a week, and then I thought,"Huh. Great song from FII, maybe I'll give the others a try."

So then I just put the album on and did a listen through, and all of a sudden it just hit me. It's a deceptively great album!

Everybody hates on You Not Me for well known reasons, but it's actually a decent track. Peruvian Skies is a bit slow but pretty good, but where the album really shines in my opinion is with Hollow Years, Take Away My Pain, and Trial Of Tears! Especially Trial of Tears, it's fucking brilliant! Also, Burning My Soul has some great riffs, I really like LaBrie's vocal on that track (his angry style, I really like it when he sings that way). Let's not forget Hell's Kitchen, which is just a nice instrumental, with some of that virtuosity we all love about DT. I still haven't really picked up on Lines In The Sand yet, but I know I'm getting there. Just Let Me Breathe is good too.

Yes it's different musically from other DT stuff, but we have a couple of albums like that. It really is a great album. Whereas I used to think it was the worst one, now I really do appreciate it after giving it a real good proper chance and a proper listen through. I don't understand why it gets so much hate.

Also I just want to add that LaBrie's performance on some of these tracks like Hollow Years and Take Away My Pain, both on the studio versions and live, is just fan-fucking-tastic. Also I really get the feeling that there's a hell of a lot of soul in some of these tracks from everybody.

So that's just my opinion of FII, what do y'all think? Hopefully I'll get a few people to reconsider their opinion of what I now consider to be an awesome album.

[Dillster22]

My 4th favourite DT album. It is amazing, very underrated.

[BlackInk]

It is underrated, except for New Millenium, You Not Me, Hollow Years, Burning My Soul, Take Away My Pain, Just Let Me Breathe and Anna Lee.

Also Lines In the Sand is a tad overrated but I am starting to like it.

[Yazman]

It is underrated, except for New Millenium, You Not Me, Hollow Years, Burning My Soul, Take Away My Pain, Just Let Me Breathe and Anna Lee.

Also Lines In the Sand is a tad overrated but I am starting to like it.

Lines in the Sand is one of my least favourite on the album, it's still good though.

[RaiseTheKnife]

I will keep banging the drum for the praise of this album . . . and i wont stop until I hear You Or Me (demo) performed live.

[BlobVanDam]

Falling Into Infinity is not extremely underrated.








It is CRIMINALLY underrated. Definitely one of my favourite DT albums, up there with any of the rest. The only truly skippable songs on the album for me are YNM and TAMP. The rest makes for a great listening experience.

[tjanuranus]

I will keep banging the drum for the praise of this album . . . and i wont stop until I hear You Or Me (demo) performed live.

[Mladen]

GREAT - Peruvian skies, Trial of tears, Burnin' my soul
GOOD - Hollow years, Just let me breathe, New millennium, Lines in the sand
AVERAGE - Hell's kitchen, Take away my pain, Anna Lee
Just plain meh - You not me

Overall still my least favorite DT album. A record with only three great songs just can't compete with some of their albums where every song is great.

In my opinion, anyway. It's just not good enough.

[tjanuranus]

The Best - LITS, Hells Kitchen, Trial of Tears, Hollow Years.
Very good - NM, PS, BMS, AL, TAMP,
Ok. - You not me

But You or Me goes in the Very good category.

So yeah, overall a great album!

[angelillo]

it is a great album, it just suffers that it cam after Awake/ACOS... and than it came SFAM...

It is agreat album... it would a classic if it had been made by any other band... but DT has sooo much good music, that anything that it is not proggy enough (FII has some very nice proggy passages tho)... also people never realy like DS that much...

Anyway any DT album is amazing... it is just that some of them are ridicolously amazing... so the ones that are "just" amazing suffer....

[Jirpo]

Great album, just suffers from a couple of bad songs.

[ZKX-2099]

I always enjoy You Not Me. I know the story behind it and all. But it's still a fun little ditty.

Lines In The Sand is a top 3 DT song for me.

New Millennium is one of the most awesomely oddball songs I've heard. 

The trade off solo bit in Just Let Me Breathe genius.

And Petrucci's solo in Trial Of Tears is a face melting classic.


Mid tier in the DT catalog, but still a great album.

[Madman Shepherd]

In many ways this album is responsible for changing me from a casual to a diehard fan.  I could never get into the prog aspects of the band and really only listened to them for the riffs and vocal melodies of a few albums.  After having FII on in the background I heard Take Away My Pain for what was probably the 30th time, but somehow it just clocked.  Then I paid attention to Hollow Years and Anna Lee, Trial of Tears and Peruvian Skies...Now I love the whole album minus Lines in the Sand, Just Let Me Breathe, and New Millenium.

I much prefer the album version of Take Away My Pain to the "Kenny G" demo version.  I also love You Not Me...I can understand why people don't LOVE the song but I honestly can't figure out why they absolutely hate it.  I also don't think You or Me is really any better.

[WildeSilas]

My second favorite DT album, and first in terms of production. DT would do well to spend that amount of time and effort again on recording techniques, mic placement, filters, and creative use of compression and effects. It's the most "proggy" of all the DT albums in terms of production. If they could match it with the writing of something like ADTOE or SDOIT it would be  .

I hated it at first too, but as I've gotten older, it's become my fav next to I&W, maybe even edging it out in a few places. As much as I love JR and what he's brought to the band, I think it was a mis-step to let DS go, not only because he was closer in style to KS but also because he obviously played an influential role in the sound of FII and ACOS. I could certainly stand to hear some more.

[Ruba]

What do I think of Falling Into Infinity:  .

I LOVE it.

It's not as good as Awake (well how it can be better than a perfect album?), but it doesn't have any fillers.

Apocalyptic New Millennium, rocking You Not Me, awesome half prog/half Metallica-stylish heavy riffing Peruvian Skies, beautiful and emotional Hollow Years, fucking heavy Burning My Soul, great instrumental Hell's Kitchen, best studio album song ever, Lines in the Sand, grrroovy Just Let Me Breathe, nice ballad Anna Lee and awesome closer Trial of Tears, which has (with Lines in the Sand) best JP solo ever.

Take Away My Pain is slightly meh in studio, but the Once in a LIVEtime-version is good.

Falling into Infinity beats every DT album made after Metropolis pt.2: Scenes from a Memory by miles, because every of them have even one filler.

[kirksnosehair]

The production values on this album are among Dream Theater's best, but there are a few songs on it that I routinely skip.

I put it in the middle of the pack somewhere.

[Ruba]

Oh, and it's the first DT album with great drum sounds (Awake's snare is a bit too thin, but otherwise it has great drum sounds).

[darkshade]

geeze do half the people posting in this thread read what they typed before they post? Ive never seen so many spelling errors and grammatical mistakes on non-youtube comments

[FlyingBIZKIT]

Yeah, it's my 3rd favorite DT album.

I'd put it as:

Amazing: Lines In The Sand, Peruvian Skies, New Millennium, Trial Of Tears, Hell's Kitchen
Great: Take Away My Pain, Hollow Years, Anna Lee
Good: Just Let Me Breathe, Burning My Soul
Okay: You Not Me

[Jaffa]

geeze(,) do half the people posting in this thread read what they typed before they post? Ive never seen so many spelling errors and grammatical mistakes on non-youtube comments(.)

Failure to capitalize the first letter of a sentence, missing a comma, missing an apostrophe from a contraction, failure to properly capitalize the name of a company, and missing a period at the end of a sentence. 

I'm afraid I'm going to have to revoke your Grammar Nazi license. 

As for Falling Into Infinity, my opinion is that about half of the songs are 'great' or better, while the other half of the songs are 'decent' or worse.  So it kinda balances out to a good but not outstanding album, for me. 

[FlyingBIZKIT]

geeze(,) do half the people posting in this thread read what they typed before they post? Ive never seen so many spelling errors and grammatical mistakes on non-youtube comments(.)

Failure to capitalize the first letter of a sentence, missing a comma, missing an apostrophe from a contraction, failure to properly capitalize the name of a company, and missing a period at the end of a sentence. 

I'm afraid I'm going to have to revoke your Grammar Nazi license. 

That's a WIN for the Jaffinator.

[jcmistat]

I used to hate on it, but I've found the greatness in Falling Into Infinity.

Anyone who dislikes Hell's Kitchen is missing out.

[Zydar]

It's a great album, one that really took a while to grow for me. The only song I don't really care for on it is Just Let Me Breathe, otherwise I like every one (including the often hated You Not Me). Personal favourites are New Millennium, Hollow Years, Take Away My Pain, and Anna Lee. I don't quite worship Lines In The Sand and Trial Of Tears like most of you do, but they are great songs nonetheless.

[darkshade]

geeze(,) do half the people posting in this thread read what they typed before they post? Ive never seen so many spelling errors and grammatical mistakes on non-youtube comments(.)

Failure to capitalize the first letter of a sentence, missing a comma, missing an apostrophe from a contraction, failure to properly capitalize the name of a company, and missing a period at the end of a sentence. 

Thus the irony of my own comment.

Cmon, you nit-picked my comment more than I did the whole thread. At least my comment was legible; some others' comments were a little hard to understand.

[theseoafs]

The majority of the album's great, but You Not Me and Burning My soul are some of the worst tracks DT's ever done. Meanwhile, Take Away My Pain and Just Let Me Breathe are pure filler, a disease which few of DT's albums suffer from.

[hefdaddy42]

The highs on this album are among DT's highest highs, but the lows are among DT's lowest lows.

Overall, for me, it is NOT a great album; it is, by definition, average.

[Jaffa]

geeze(,) do half the people posting in this thread read what they typed before they post? Ive never seen so many spelling errors and grammatical mistakes on non-youtube comments(.)

Failure to capitalize the first letter of a sentence, missing a comma, missing an apostrophe from a contraction, failure to properly capitalize the name of a company, and missing a period at the end of a sentence. 

Thus the irony of my own comment.

Cmon, you nit-picked my comment more than I did the whole thread. At least my comment was legible; some others' comments were a little hard to understand.

Oh, I know.  I don't mean to imply that you have particularly bad grammar.  Nothing personal, and sorry if I was legitimately offensive.  It's just a little internet pet peeve of mine: I think that before someone complains about anyone else's grammar, they should first make sure their own grammar is pretty much perfect.  That's the reason I've proofread this message six times before posting it.

[Bongasti]

Definitely underrated. I don't really like Burning My Soul and You Not Me but two bad songs don't make a bad album. I think that when people think about FII, they tend to just think of YNM and songs like that, but don't realize how great the rest of the songs are. So yeah, probably my 4th favorite DT album.

[Lowdz]

Yazman I agree with everything you said apart from BMS and JLMB- they are poor. And LITS is awesome apart from the Kings X guy shrieking all over it.

[RuRoRul]

It is underrated as a whole. I don't think it's underrated on this forum though as most people here seem to appreciate it or realise that it's not that bad at all.

Lines In The Sand and Trial Of Tears are great, both in my top 15 DT songs I think, and apart from that it has three or four others I consider pretty good but nothing special, but then it also has a lot that, while I don't dislike them (I even like You Not Me although it is amongst the worst DT songs) they are really in the bottom barrel of all DT songs. No other (Labrie) album has that much weak material, so while the highs are up there with some of DT's best, I find it hard to justify considering any (Labrie) album worse than it overall.

But it's still a great album, and like I said I don't actually consider anything on it really terrible, it's just that there's so much stuff that is just all right.

[toro]

It's really underrated, it still has some shitty songs(TAMP and YNM) but the rest of the album goes from good to amazing.

Also
Trial Of Tears is the #1 song of all time that changed songs forever.

[Nel]

I really like Hell's Kitchen and Trial Of Tears, but even after listening to it so many times it's still pretty boring otherwise.

[Pols Voice]

It's my 4th favorite DT album. Pretty great stuff. Lines in the Sand and Trial of Tears are amazing. I don't even have a problem with You Not Me, but Burning My Soul is kinda cruddy.

[02T]

The King's X guy (you know, the best rock singer on the damn planet) singing on "Lines In The Sand" is my favorite part of it.  I dig the whole album.

[Vivace]

Agreed. Derek is all over this album and without him I don't think it would have been half as good as it is. I prefer this album to almost all JR albums with the exception of now ADToE.