FALLING INTO INFINITY

Falling Into Infinity is the fourth studio album by American progressive metal legends Dream Theater and it is the band's first and only studio album to feature keyboardist Derek Sherinian following the departure of Kevin Moore in 1994. The artwork already may make the listener cautious, the cover and the logo is very different from the unbeatable progressive metal classics Images and Words and Awake. Unfortunately, the music makes some suspicions true. The reason for this is that this time Elektra Records was exerting pressure on the band to write commercial songs, which can be aired on radio. For over a year, Dream Theater wrote songs without being given permission to record them,. The band at one point became so frustrated that they considered disbanding. They even had to work with Desmond Child who made some hits for Bon jovi, Ricky Martin and Cher... Considering all this, the album is nmuch better as it may be expected, altough is obviously nowhere to Dream Theater's best works. The musicianship is stellar as always, and it is really no reason blame Derek Sherinian for the shortcomings of the album. The album has a rather straigtforward, accesible sound, much less heavy than any Dream Theater album before. Fortunately, the 78 minutes of this 11 track albums features some real treaures. The best 16 minutes are the instrumental Hell's kitchen closely connected the 12 minute mini epic feturing guest vocals by Doug Pnnick from King's X. This is a really well written piece, a classic Dream Theater track for me. The other good tracks are Trial of Tears, New Millenium, some parts of Peruvian Skies sound very similar to Metallica's Enter Sandman to me, but it is still a good song. Hollow years is one of the better songs by Dream Theater called ballad. However, the "rockers" Just let me Breathe,Burning my Soul and the "ballads" Anna Lee and Take away my pain would be embarassing pieces by much less talented bands than Dream Theater. The true nadir of the album is obviously You not Me, this the song which was co-written by Desmond Child. Whenever play this album I prefer to skip this one. All in all Falling Into Infinity has certainly a lot aof merits, but many flaws, too, so my rating is going to be good but non essential.