A CHANGE OF SEASONS

The studio half of this EP features Dream Theater at near its best. The 24 min epic contains just about everything great about Dream Theater without any of their less than favorable qualities (besides some sub-par vocal sections). The song resembles Images & Words material featuring a healthy mix of heavy and acoustic passages. I think Sherinian slightly drags down to composition as I never felt his style fit the band. The version recorded with Kevin Moore is a good deal superior, but this song is still a solid four starer.

The live half of this album features a collection terrible of covers excluding the "Funeral For A Friend - Love Lies Bleeding" reworking which is just as good as the original. Dream Theater would should just how bad they could botch cover songs later on when their Master Of Puppets cover was released. Here the covers aren't quite as bad, but they're definitely not worth listening to. The worst of the bunch is "The Big Medley" which from its opening with an emotionless rendition of "In The Flesh?" pretty much captures the true quality of Dream Theater's cover work.

This is worth getting just for the title track, but that's most likely the only thing you'll ever listen to.