One For The Road: 9/9/12

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Dream Theater - Octavarium (LIVE in Seoul, 2006)

Source

A few interesting little factoids: The first track of the album Octavarium starts in the key of F-major, and the following seven tracks each ascend one key, ending with the eighth track (the 24:00-long title track "Octavarium") back in the key of F-major -- hence the name of the album & song.

There were also sound effects placed between songs to connect them: for example, "The Root of All Evil", written in F, and the following track, "The Answer Lies Within", written in G, were connected by a sound effect in the key of F#.

Lastly, Octavarium begins "The Root of All Evil" with the final note of the band's previous album, Train of Thought with "In the Name of God". Train of Thought started "As I Am" with the last note from Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence with the title track, which in turn started with the noise that ended Scenes from a Memory at the end of "Finally Free". Portnoy was inspired to do this thanks to the Van Halen album Women and Children First; the outro of the album's final song ended with a new riff being played which faded out. Portnoy recalled that he expected Van Halen's next album to start with that ending riff, but was disappointed when it did not. He later realized he had "dug a hole where we're expected to do it every time". He solved this problem on Octavarium, where the final track ends with the beginning of the first one. This made the album a cycle in itself, allowing the band to have a clean start with their next album. (Source)