FALLING INTO INFINITY

Enter the cringe-period of Dream Theater's career (1997-current).

Averaged out, this is a good album. The highlight is without a doubt Lines in the Sand, as well as the instrumental Hell's Kitchen which proceeds it. Together they form a 16-minute mega track that is one of the greatest things Dream Theater has ever done. Overall, the sound is more organic and commercial. Most of the time, this is OK for this album. A few times, however, it is disastrous.

To be honest, I haven't listened to Burning My Soul or Just Let Me Breathe in a very long time. One time alone was traumatic enough to convince me to never again listen to such an abomination. If you want to get an idea for how bad the former track is, picture this: a completely bone-headed riff that Slipknot would throw away for not meeting their intellectual standards, made even more insipid by a robot voice crooning "Burning My Soul..." Maybe that kind of thing passed as edgy for teenage boys in the 90's, but if you're anyone else, it will make you cringe with embarrassment and ache to smash this disc to pieces. Its just that bad.

Its a shame too, because most of this album is really good! Dream Theater were still young enough in their career that they still had fresh ideas, not had they succumb to packing 400% too much noodling into their "epics" (though Trial of Tears comes close). I even like the LaBrie- penned Anna Lee!

So if you work around the atrocious butt-rockers that are tracks 2, 5, and 9, its pretty good. Ignore other comments about cheesy ballads, its the painfully forced attempts at metal here that diminish the power of this recording. Recommended, but prepare for a cringe or two.

3/5