DREAM THEATER
Falling Into Infinity (1997)

Rating: 4/10.
Help, we've fallen into infinity and can't get back up.



For awhile back in 1992 it seemed like Dream Theater were onto something. Their second album, "Images and Words", boasted a suite of compositions that seamlessly melded beguiling melodies with dark atmospheric textures and a deft instrumental sophistication that stopped just before the point of over-indulgence.

And of special noteworthiness (especially in a milieu like Metal, where musical collaboration usually means something like the guys in Coroner playing with the guys from Coronary), Dream Theater played the ultimate guest-musician- on-a-metal-album card and invited fusion-jazz muso Jay Beckenstein of Spyro Gyra to jam with them. It may have been an experiment of questionable taste, but it certainly was audacious, and "Images and Words" became more ubiquitous amongst Queensryche-glutted prog-metal pundits than Postix messages in an office.

Their subsequent releases were unfortunately far less satisfying. "Awake" saw them choosing fusion over form and focus, and yielded only occasional interesting moments. On the extended E.P. "A Change of Seasons" they tagged a tedious, 23-minute long "opus" to a cringingly bad trio of medleys that included covers of songs by band favourites like Elton John, Journey, Kansas, Queen and Deep Purple. If anything, "A Change of Seasons" gave one pause to stop and say: hey, this is just abit crap, isn't it?

On their latest full length release, "Falling Into Infinity", Dream Theater seem to have reined in somewhat their propensity to create complex maps of sound that leave you searching for a hook or just a little heart, and instead, have written some of their simplest songs ever. The results though are somewhat uneven. "Hollow Years" and "Anna Lee" are pleasantly distracting ballads even if they don't seem particularly inspired. "Peruvian Skies" and "Take Away My Pain" fit rather neatly into the easy-listening New Age Rock mould cast by the latter-day Yes, but are perhaps even less interesting than what Yes have been coming up with lately.

But it's really on their lengthier work-outs like "New Millennium" and "Trial of Tears" on which the band exhibit their amazingly proficient level of instrumental wanksmanship that we are reminded why Dream Theater's latest material has proved to be disappointing. This most musicianly of bands seems to have attempted to study at the feet of masters like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Rush, and when that wasn't turning out so well, they decided to just steal their shoes instead.

Alas, "Falling Into Infinity" simply lacks any real vitality, edge, or enthusiasm. The band's imagination seems to be a finite thing that might already be spent, and Dream Theater may very well be becoming the Recurring Dream Theater.

Rating: 4/10


Gerald Tan 1997

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 Visitor's Comments:

FROM: zasylum@softhome.net (Zasylum)
DATE: Tue, 23 Mar 1999
SUBJECT: Losing Direction
COMMENTS: I have to agree....It may be a bit repetitive but Kevin Moore was the Heart of this band and brought soul to the music...without him the music from this band is flat..well played but flat. Yes the individual members still have incredible talent but seem to have lost their focal point..which I believe to be Kevin Moore


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