A CHANGE OF SEASONS

Now, this is not quiet a full Dream Theater album... but it is as much worth getting as any of their full studio albums. In part because it's long enough to be a complete album, and also because the original Dream Theater track is a must have for any fan of the band, and then, the rest of the music (all covers) is also very enjoyable.

The title track is a beautiful Prog Metal Epic, with beautiful intro, great vocals, great instrumental passages, and great metal moments. Then there is a bunch of covers. First we get a cover of an Elton John song (yes, Dream Theater covering Elton John), "Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding"... now, this song will not appeal to anyone who is expecting a full metal album, because this song has absolutley no metal, as a matter of fact DT played it just about the same way the original was played; the first part is a beautiful instrumental prog piece serving as an introduction to the second mainly pop/rock song... for me the first part is the better, but as a whole it is a nice song. Then comes Deep Purple's "Perfect Stranger", also a very good hard rock song, but don't expect much metal in the modern sense. The rest of the album is what puts me of a bit, and that's mainly because I'm not very keen on Meddleys, and that's what follows: first a Led Zeppelin Meddley of "The Rover / Achilles Last Stand / The Song Remains the Same"... the reason I don't like Meddleys is because if I like the songs, then I just end up wanting to hear the whole song, and in this case I wish they had played the whole Achilles Last Stand, instead of just about half the song, with and intro and outro of the other songs which I actually don't really like very much. And then comes the "Big Medley", with songs from different arstist, and it is the same; I do like all the songs represented, some I like a lot, other just a bit, but I whish they had just chosen 2 or 3 of those songs and played them complete... a whole Bohemian Rhapsody would have been awsome. So, it is mainly for this Meddleys that I don't give the 5 stars to this album, I just end up rating it as 4.5, rounding it down to 4.