FALLING INTO INFINITY

This album was recorded after the excellent "Awake" and before the masterpiece "Scenes from a memory" (I have to review this album!!). And this is the only studio album featuring Derek Shernian on keyboards. Well, if you compare it to "Scenes.." it's so far of being as good as this one, but it's good to have it because it shows another "side" of Dream Theater. The first thing that impressed me was Labrie's voice. This time he doesn't go so high with the notes, and sometimes he sings like "quietly". I prefer his voice on "Images and words", "Awake" or "Scenes...". Another thing was the compositions, some of them maybe not so intrincated or complicated: there are some more conventional songs as "You not me"(very personal song), "Hollow years" (nice acoustic with excellent vocal melodies that make you sing it once and again), "Peruvian skies" (there is an obvious Pink Floyd influence on that chorus!!), "Take away my pain"(nice ballad. In my opinion better live, if you listen "Once in a livetime", with that sax solo), "Burning my soul" (this one is the heaviest song of the record, nice to headbang), "Just let me breathe" (I have to say something with this song: if you listen carefully, when it says "Just close your mind you can find all you need with your eyes ", that part is taken from Queen's "Bohemian rhapsody" -when it says "So you think You can stole me and spit in my eye " -), "Ana Lee" (another ballad, with excellent chorus).

And there are complex, intrincated songs as the opening one "New millenium" (excellent intro, very prog), "Lines in the sand" ("Hell's kitchen" is like the intro of this excellent song, which has a really excellent guitar solo, maybe one of Petrucci's best ones, again with some Floyd things. Both songs together go excellent!! ) and the best of the album "Trial of tears" (nice, very nice and prog, with time changes and another excellent guitar solo, the best one of the album -starts quietly and finishes super fast!! The keyboard solo is very good too. Nice song to close the album).

This is an excellent addition in your discography, if you want to discover another DT side.