Octavarium
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| Octavarium | ||
 |
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| Studio album by Dream Theater | ||
| Released | June 7, 2005 | |
| Recorded | November 2004 - February 25, 2005 at The Hit Factory in New York City | |
| Genre | Progressive metal | |
| Length | 75:55 | |
| Label | Atlantic Records | |
| Producer(s) | John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy | |
| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
| Dream Theater chronology | ||
| Live at Budokan (2004) |
Octavarium (2005) |
Score (2006) |
Octavarium is the eighth full-length Dream Theater studio album, released on June 7, 2005 (see 2005 in music).
It holds the distinction of being the last album ever recorded at The Hit Factory in New York City. After the Dream Theater sessions ended on Friday night, the lights were turned off and the doors to the studio were locked forever – ending an era in the music industry [1].
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
- "The Root of All Evil" – 8:25 (music by Dream Theater, lyrics by Portnoy)
- VI. Ready
- VII. Remove
- "The Answer Lies Within" – 5:33 (Dream Theater, Petrucci)
- "These Walls" – 7:36 (Dream Theater, Petrucci)
- "I Walk Beside You" – 4:29 (Dream Theater, Petrucci)
- "Panic Attack" – 8:13 (Dream Theater, Petrucci)
- "Never Enough" – 6:46 (Dream Theater, Portnoy)
- "Sacrificed Sons" – 10:42 (Dream Theater, LaBrie)
- "Octavarium" – 24:00 (Dream Theater, LaBrie/Petrucci/Portnoy)
- I. Someone Like Him (Lyrics by Petrucci)
- II. Medicate (Awakening) (LaBrie)
- III. Full Circle (Portnoy)
- IV. Intervals (Portnoy)
- V. Razor's Edge (Petrucci)
[edit] Credits
[edit] Band
- James LaBrie – Vocals
- John Myung – Bass
- John Petrucci – Guitar, backing vocals
- Mike Portnoy – Drums, percussion and backing vocals
- Jordan Rudess – Keyboard, Continuum and lap steel guitar
[edit] Other
- Strings arranged and conducted by Jamshied Sharifi
- Jill Dell'Abate - Orchestral Contractor
- Orchestra on Sacrificed Sons and Octavarium
- Concert Master
- Elena Barere
- Violins
- Katharine Fong
- Ann Lehmann
- Katherine Livolsi-Stern
- Laura McGinniss
- Catherine Ro
- Ricky Sortomme
- Yuri Vodovoz
- Violas
- Vincent Lionti
- Karen Dreyfus
- Cellos
- Richard Locker
- Jeanne LeBlanc
- Flutes
- Pamela Sklar
- French Horns
- Joe Anderer
- Stewart Rose
- Concert Master
- String Quartet on The Answer Lies Within
- Elena Barere - First Violin
- Carol Webb - Second Violin
- Vincent Lionti - Viola
- Richard Locker - Cello
[edit] Chart performance
- Austria – 35
- Canada – 15
- China – 100
- Czech Republic – 33
- Denmark – 38
- Finland – 2
- France – 18
- Germany – 15
- Greece – 3
- Hungary – 4
- Italy – 2
- Japan – 10
- Netherlands – 9
- Norway – 9
- Poland – 39
- Spain – 31
- Sweden – 4
- Switzerland – 43
- Slovenia – 2
- UK – 72
- USA – 36
[edit] Speculation on the title
Due to its unusual name, many Dream Theater fans speculated on what they believe to be the meaning of the album's title.
At first the band was going to name the album just Octave. But when prog rock band Spock's Beard released their (also eighth) album Octane earlier in 2005, Dream Theater decided to differentiate its name a bit more from that.
Some thought that the title referred to Octavarium Romanum, which was a book of Catholic liturgy referring to a period known as the Octave. There is also a similarity to the musical Octave: Root, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, Octave - and the title of the first track is "The Root of All Evil". Others theorized that the title came from Latin words meaning "Various Eight", since it has eight tracks and the band has said that the eight songs on the record are all of different styles. However, this is incorrect Latin; the Latin word for eight is "octo," not "octa," and "varium" is singular when it would need to be plural. This theory may have come from the fact that Octavarium is the band's eighth album, since "octavus" is Latin for "eighth".
Yet another interpretation was that the "-arium" suffix is used to denote a place where something is held, in this case musical octaves. This turns out to be the closest to the truth, when the lyrics from the title track ("Trapped inside this Octavarium") are considered, creating a portmanteau from the words octave and aquarium.
It is also interesting to note that Octavarium follows a pattern started in Dream Theater's 6th studio album, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, which had 6 songs and the word six in the title. The next album, Train of Thought, contained 7 tracks, was their 7th studio album, and the capital letters are T's, which are represented, in leet writing, by the number 7. Octavarium, the 8th studio album by the band, follows both of these apparent "trends" with 8 songs and a title related to the number eight, as already mentioned.
Every song of the album is in a different minor key, starting with F, then G, A, B, C, D, E, and returning to F. This is evident by the treble clef staves in the liner notes. Also, between some pairs of songs, a transition, represented in the CD as negative time preceding the second song of the pair, is made in the corresponding accidental key related to the pair in question. For instance, the synth solo following Panic Attack (in the key of C minor) is placed as negative time preceding Never Enough (in the key of D minor) and is in the key of C# minor.
Many fans have made observations about the recurrances of 5s and 8s in the album art, possibly a reference to the Golden ratio, very common in art throughout history and in Nature itself. The name Octavarium itself has 5 syllables, while connotating 8. The use of 5s and 8s stems from the number of natural notes (white keys on a piano) and black keys (sharp/flat notes) in an octave. It may also refer to the number of members in the band from its inception in 1985 to 2005, Octavarium being the band's 8th studio album, and the subsequent "Score" being their fifth live album.
Several of the 5 and 8 references in the album are:
- The cover and back cover show a Newton's Cradle with eight pendulums, and five birds in between them, arranged in the same pattern as black piano keys. (The black birds represent flats and sharps and the balls of the pendulum represent the natural notes.)
- On the spine of the album there are piano keys in an octave.
- On the page 5 of the booklet, there are two dominoes summing up to 5 and 8.
- On the page 7 of the booklet, there is a spider (which has eight legs) trapped inside an octagon-shaped maze. The maze is made of five layers and has eight doorways amongst the layers, and eight walls that form "dead ends".
- On the page 11 of the booklet, there is an octopus (which has eight legs), five fish and an octagonal stop sign.
- On the page 13 of the booklet, there is a plant in which a five-pointed star was drawn inside an octagon. The scale of the plant is stated to be 5:8.
- On the insides of the the front and back covers of the booklet, there are two pictures of the same boy holding two ends of a can telephone. First picture is accompanied by 8 lines of capitalized text (track titles). Second picture is accompanied by 5 lines (band members' names).
- The booklet itself has eight pages, if left and right pages are considered to be a single page.
- On the inlay of the album, there is a billiards eight-ball.
- The title track (Octavarium) comprises five movements.
Also, the star in the octagon has musical keys written around it that go in a circle of fifths.
The Newton's Cradle on the cover and the musical hooks connecting all the songs together lyrically and melodically have also given rise to the theory that the entire album is intended to be a concept album portraying continuity.
Octavarium also lasts 24:00; 24 is a multiple of 8.
An in-depth analysis of the entire album can be found here.
[edit] Pre-release leaking
For approximately three months prior to Octavarium's release, James LaBrie's solo album Elements of Persuasion was distributed as Octavarium in many file-sharing circles. Due to the fact that LaBrie's distinctive voice can be heard on both albums, many people were unable to tell that it was in fact a different band, and it continued to be distributed as a genuine Dream Theater release until a week or so before the official release date of the album. MTV Brazil played a song from this album on air as if it was a genuine Octavarium track.
At that time a version of the actual album found its way onto the Internet, but it was slightly different to the final product released to stores; the ending to the track "Octavarium" was slightly modified from a lonely flute playing to the starting piano note. On an XM radio show interview with Eddie Trunk, Portnoy revealed that only approximately ten people were given a copy of that version of the album: the five band members, Portnoy's father Howard Portnoy, and a handful of people at Atlantic Records.
[edit] Panic Attack sound clip
Mike Portnoy provided a sound clip of "Panic Attack" to Gigantour website 4 weeks before the release of "Octavarium".
