#06 - Octavarium (My Ranking: #03)
The brand new Dream Theater album that was just released right before I really started listening to the band. My friend couldn't stop talking about it, and I had just seen the band at Gigantour, not knowing I heard some songs from it. I bought the album and ended up really enjoying the theme.
It's ranked high because I love conceptual albums, especially those that tell a narrative story, and the themes this album involves are deeply intriguing. I just love all the nuggety goodness of this album. The use of the musical key, and each song being written in that key is very fitting of the album name. The symbolizing of the numbers 3,5, and 8 were a big joke with me and my friends in High School and we still joke about it when we see those numbers and say..."OMG...OCTAVARIUM...AHHH!!!" (the ahh is a joke to our math teacher).
The theme expands more for me though, as I consider the Octavarium to be the cycle of life. All the songs have a theme about wanting to live life, understanding life, and the struggles of life. All these things that happen within the Octavarium. Octavarium represents the life cycle of a human. When we are born we humans need dependency on another, we gain independence, yet when we grow old, we then again need that dependence which completes the cycle of "This story ends where it began". This is why for me the main theme and concept is all summed up with the title-track by going through each octave until it climaxes at "Trapped Inside This Octavarium". It's best said with the lyrics, "Step after step we try controlling our fate, but when we finally start living it's become to late."
Even the musical, influential references of other bands songs are a part of what the Octavarium is. How music is all related and cycles across many songs from many bands, an explanation for why some songs sound similar to one another. I feel that is best explained in the Full Circle section of Octavarium with all the references MP gives with his lyrics here.
This is one album I will always enjoy and I love the themes from it. One day, I hope, I will get to finally see the title-track live.
Favorite: These Walls
Least: The Answer Lies Within