Octavarium

Octavarium is the eighth full-length Dream Theater studio album, released on June 7, 2005

It holds the distinction of being the last album ever recorded at The Hit Factory in New York City. According to the DVD Documentary in Score, John Petrucci considered this album to be the band’s best work to that point.

Songs
Octavarium follows a pattern started in Dream Theater’s sixth studio album, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, which had six songs (and also the word “six” in the title). The next album, Train of Thought, was the band’s seventh studio album and contained 7 tracks. Octavarium, the band’s eighth studio album, has eight songs (and a title related to the number eight). The pattern was discontinued with the band’s ninth studio album, Systematic Chaos, which has only eight tracks (two of which are separate parts to the same song, “In the Presence of Enemies”).

Every song of the album is in a different minor key, starting with F, then G, A, B, C, D, E, and returning to F. This is evident by the treble clef staves in the liner notes. Also, between some pairs of songs, a transition, represented in the CD as negative time preceding the second song of the pair, is made in the corresponding accidental key related to the pair in question. For instance, the synth solo following “Panic Attack” (in the key of C minor) is placed as negative time preceding “Never Enough” (in the key of D minor) and is in the key of C# minor.

“Panic Attack” will be featured as a playable song in the upcoming release of Rock Band 2 in September 2008.


Golden Ratio