FALLING INTO INFINITY

Falling into Infinity... a meaningless, meandering sort of name, and is sadly rather appropriate. It's an album that isn't quite sure what to do with itself. Someone clearly wanted a little more mainstream attention with the album, but they didn't want to alienate their fans in the process. The dilemma is hardly new, nor is the ill advised solution of cramming some supposedly radio friendly numbers into the gaps between fan pleasers.

The results are depressingly predictable. Writing pop songs is all well and good, but you have to be able to actually... you know, write a pop song in order to do it. Dream Theater, like many musically virtuoso bands, fall into the trap of assuming that if you write short and simple songs it will automatically make them catchy and radio-friendly. Sadly for them, it doesn't.

'You Not Me' and 'Burning My Soul' are laboriously dull metal tracks, 'Take Away My Pain' and 'Anna Lee' are flaccid ballads, limping along with all the emotive impact of an inanimate lump of concrete. Living the vida loca they are not.

The sad thing is that there is a really good album in there somewhere, and one that might well have given the broader appeal aimed at, you just have to edit out a lot of chaff to get it. 'New Millennium' and 'Just Let Me Breathe' manage to incorporate catchy melodies without veering away from the band's strengths and are reasonably good, 'Hell's Kitchen' is beautifully evocative, and both 'Lines in the Sand' and Trial of Tears' are very successful attempts at a more measured take on the prog metal epic. The problem isn't that they tried to be more commercial, but that they made a bit of a mess doing it.

It could have been a great 50 minute album, instead, it's a poor 78 minute album with far too much filler.