Just as I entered the local music store underneath my office (I work in a tower with a shopping mall underneath) I saw the store manager receiving their shipment - lo and behold, DT's latest album "Octavarium" was in there. I managed to sweet-talk the lovely young lady into selling me a copy early today since I'll be in a hotel most of next week and wanted some new tunes to keep me company.

After a few listens I can say with no doubt that the DT guys deliver again. Without making this too long, this album definitely has it's own flavour - different than previous releases, though if I had to describe it based on their earlier work I'd say it continues the trend towards heavier prog stuff that began with "Six Degrees" and continued with "Train of Thought". The cool part is the tunes are bit more melodic this time around with maybe less focus on being heavy for the sake of being heavy, and the album changes pace more than ToT as well.

James LaBrie is really coming into his own with DT - maybe he feels more comfortable in his role now, I don't know, or maybe the songs are just being written with his vocals in the back of the band's mind? Either way, this is probably his best stuff so far IMO.

Jordan Rudess is the other surprise on this album for me...damn that guy's good.

Petrucci and Portnoy are, well, Petrucci and Portnoy...

The album's not without flaws, there's two songs I don't particularly find all that strong right now (that could change with a few more spins of course), not really bad but not up there with the rest of the album. Of course, with this band's pure talent even when they're bad their good...

Lyrically, well, there's some greatness, and some not-so greatness, one thing I've always liked about DT is that the band shares the lyric writing, so you never get too much of a bad thing.

Favorite songs so far are "These Walls" and the amazing 24 minute "Octavarium" which challenges "A Change of Seasons" as one helluva musical ride...these two tracks are easily up there with DT's best work

I'm sure this will grow on me more with a few more plays (DT's stuff always does) but I don't think it'll be remembered as their best stuff. Fans of DT won't be disappointed, and it's a really good album on it's own.

For some reason it leaves me thinking they're on the verge of something big...(Metropolis pt 3?)

On early impressions, I give it a solid B+.