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''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 {Link without Title} . TRACK LISTING # The Root of All Evil (8:25) (music by Dream Theater, lyrics by Portnoy)
# 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)
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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. First it is remarkable that the album should not even be called ''Octavarium'' first but ''Octave''. Though 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 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. 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 CD, '' Train Of Thought '', contained 7 tracks (as well as the fact that the word "Thought" has seven letters in it), and ''Octavarium'' follows both of these apparent "trends" with 8 songs and a title related to the number eight. 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. Many fans have made observations about the recurrances of 5's and 8's in the album art. The name Octavarium itself has 5 syllables, while connotating 8. The use of 5's and 8's stems from the number of natural notes (white keys on a piano) and accidentals (sharp/flat keys) in an octave. It may also refer to the number of members in the band from its inception in 1985 to 2005 and Octavarium being the band's 8th studio album. Several of the blatant 5 and 8 references in the album are: # On the cover, there are eight pendulums which have five birds in between them, and the birds are arranged in the same pattern as piano keys (with the black birds representing flats and sharps and the balls of the pendulum representing the natural notes). # On the spine of the album there are piano keys in an octave. # The dominoes add up to five and eight. # The octopus has eight legs and there are five fish around it. # The stop sign has eight sides. # The star (which has five "legs") is inside of an octagon (which has eight sides) also the scale of the star and octagon is 5:8. # The spider has eight legs and is inside an octagon which has eight sides and five "layers." Also, the maze itself has 8 doorways amongst the layers. # There is a billiards eight-ball on the space behind where the CD is. Another thing is that there are eight references to five and eight, and the star in the octagon has musical keys written around it that go in a circle of fifths. The pendulums 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. A very good analysis of the entire album can be found here , including some of the above mentioned information, plus a lot more. PRE-RELEASE AND HOAX SAMPLES As is the case with many highly anticipated albums, there have been several Hoax es perpetrated in the lead up to the album's release. The first hoax occurred when 90 seconds of music advertised as a sample of the song "Panic Attack" was released through various music related Message Board s, but many Dream Theater fans questioned its authenticity as it wasn't released through any official Dream Theater channels. Because the band have made a point not to release any advance material of their albums in the past (even going so far as to not release promotional copies to radio stations), it was suspected by most that the sample was in fact not from the forthcoming album. These suspicions proved correct when the music was correctly identified as "Ripples in Time" by the band Chrome Shift . A sample, described as a "premix" of the track "Octavarium", also circulated in '' — ''before'' having heard a single note of the album. Another set of samples, apparently leaked by a source close to the band sometime before May 11 th, consists of several audio fragments, one for each song (except "I Walk Beside You"). Drummer Mike Portnoy acknowledged the authenticity of these samples on his Internet Forum , but they were not sanctioned by the band as official. 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 . Panic Attack sound clip Mike Portnoy provided a sound clip of "Panic Attack" to Gigantour website 4 weeks before the release of "Octavarium". |
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