Year: 2005
Country: USA
Running time: 24 mins. 1 sec.
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The second artist or group to appear in the top 20 for a second time are American progressive metal masters Dream Theater, who however are once again not particularly metallic in my selection. The title track of their album Octavarium from seven years ago finishes just outside top 10. There are some individual, genuine prog metal sequences but they form only a small part of the 24-minute track which mostly falls into symphonic prog category.
I received some feedback to my previous article about Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (#16), and was informed that the string arrangements of that piece's overture were not real strings but only Jordan Rudess's keyboards. Well OK, I can buy that, but this time around, there really is a genuine orchestra playing in the background!
Again, a long composition begins with an overture of sorts, played with keyboards and guitar, and setting a melancholic mood. This opening is slightly reminiscent of Pink Floyd's Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Part 1. Shortly before the four-minute mark the rest of the instruments join the song, and we are on our way. By the time James LaBrie first starts singing, the listener should realise that the band is now really on to something. The melody in the first movement is memorable and beautiful, played and sung in low volume, which fits well the lyrics' central theme of regret over past mistakes: uncertainty about whether one has become what one actually wanted to.
Like Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, the song connects several separate movements. Here we have five of them, and they all tell their own, loosely connected stories. The second movement adds tempo, especially in the instrumental sequence, and is overall equally well written as the first.
In the third movement the band really starts rocking, and the first genuine metal riffs are played. Drummer Mike Portnoy wrote the lyrics of this movement quite ingeniously by combining the titles of about 30 of his favourite songs and artists - even Supper's Ready (#12) is mentioned! The third movement ends with a kick-ass instrumental sequence where it is John Petrucci's turn to show off his guitar playing skills. Jordan Rudess's keyboard sound is here very much like Eddie Jobson's (see #14) in the latter part of 1970's.
At just under a minute and a half, the fourth movement is the shortest and also most aggressive. Following some truly serious prog metal riffs, the orchestra finally opens the closing sequence with yet another beautiful melody that finally segues into a reprise of the opening theme. All ends as it began, the lyrics also confirm. The final movement is then crowned with one of the absolute all time best climbs into a massive ending. Petrucci's guitar leads the way to a perfectly orchestrated (and I mean that literally) finale that you can't listen to without goosebumps. The final piano note is the same one that Octavarium the album was opened with over an hour earlier.
Octavarium is Dream Theater's undeniable masterwork they have yet to surpass. I had the pleasure of attending their concert in Helsinki, Finland in 2005 where they performed this track live in its entirety. This was against my expectations, as I thought they wouldn't spend 24 minutes of the allocated time playing a single song. A pleasant surprise, then, and one of my best concert experiences ever, thank you guys!
I have heard criticism against Octavarium the song for not offering anything really new, and instead simply rceycling a number of progressive rock clichés. I'm not sure if that is a completely valid point, but be that as it may, I don't really care either. Who does? If an artist or a group can achieve something of this magnitude by combining variations of existing works, they should by all means keep on doing so. Go ahead and do it again! Several times over!
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