For Dream Theater, album No. 8 was their fourth with a lineup including Jordan Rudess on keyboards (the keyboard slot being the weak seat in the band). The band apparently listened to fan’s comments about the last two extremely hectic, overly chaotic albums and scaled back their penchant for excessive, needless soloing, focusing more on building intriguing song-structures like they used to do — rather than finding excuses to show off.
‘Half Notes’ are quick-take thoughts on music from Something Else! Reviews, presented whenever the mood strikes us.
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Tom Johnson has contributed to Blogcritics, and maintained a series of stand-alone sites including Known Johnson, Everything is a Mess and others. He studied both creative writing and then studio art at Arizona State. Contact Something Else! at [email protected].
Latest posts by Tom Johnson (see all)
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I was underwhelmed by “Octavarium” I thought it was okay, but after about a month or so I grew bored of it. I much preferred “Train of Thought,” “Systematic Chaos,” and “Black Clouds and Silver Linings” over “Octavarium.”