Dream Theater – Falling Into Infinity (EastWest)

Performance: A mix of glistening virtuosity, elaborate progisms, and actual songs

Hot Spots: “Just Let Me Breathe” “Hollow Years” “Lines In The Sand”

Bottom Line: A leaner but no less dazzling Dream Theater

On the verge of becoming a cult band whose music is only fathomable by prog rockers and Berklee graduates, the Long Island quintet Dream Theater took a new approach for its fourth album. Rather than pandering to its rabid cult of fans or becoming a victim of the band members’ acrobatic chops, Dream Theater abandoned its fragmented methods of recording in favor of a one-song-at-a-time approach. The result is its best album, a mix of astounding virtuosity and leaner songs and arrangements.

Fear not, DT diehards: Among the best of the album’s 11 tracks is the 12-minute “Lines In The Sand,” a driving epic built on roiling organ, John Petrucci’s inspired guitar parts, and increasingly ecstatic vocal trade-offs between Dream Theater’s James LaBrie and Doug Pinnick of King’s X. The eight-minute, album-opening “New Millennium” tumbles through half a dozen time changes and tonal variations, from its angular synthesized opening to an almost funk groove at the bridge, and the album-ending, three-part, 13-minute suite “Trial Of Tears” incorporates all the classic excesses of the best progressive rock.

It’s the “shorter” tracks, though, that suggest Dream Theater has the mettle to assuage the cult and impress the masses. The heavy-bass throb and big chorus of “You Not Me” and the chunky “Burning My Soul “ affix the band’s sound to the best of modern hard rock. But it’s the simple acoustic arrangement and appealing pop melody of “Hollow Years” that could gain the band access to the radio charts the same way that “Silent Lucidity” boosted Dream Theater contemporary Queensryche.

—BM