A CHANGE OF SEASONS

This EP, released by progressive metallers Dream Theater in 1995, has an amazing song, and some other fairly forgettable ones. The EP runs for about 57 minutes, which is far exceeding the usual length for an EP. The band decided to release it as an EP even though its length because they felt that the contents of the EP weren't up to the standard or musical style that they wanted for their next album.

Track 1 is called A Change of Seasons, and is arguably one of Dream Theater's best songs. Clocking in at just over 23 minutes, it contains some of the most beautiful melodies and passages that DT has ever made. It has its heavier moments too, sounding quite similar in a way to the band's earlier works from the 80s (perhaps because most of this song was actually written in the 80s). In my opinion, the band's best lyrics are found in this track, especially in the deep and intriguing section "Carpe Diem". The EP is worth buying for this track alone.

Next up is a cover of Elton John's "Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding". It's a decent cover, but isn't in amazing quality and is not something that is very memorable. A cover of Deep Purple's "Perfect Strangers" is next, and I assume that this track is played by Nightmare Cinema (the alter-ego joke group that the members of Dream Theater made, which usually performed this song with everyone in the band on a different instrument to what they usually play). Like track 2, it's alright, nothing special. There's a Led Zeppelin medley after this song, which is again pretty good, but not amazing.

The last track is a 10 minute medley of songs such as Pink Floyd's "In the Flesh?". It's quite good and entertaining, and probably the second best track on the EP behind the title track.

Overall: This is a good EP by Dream Theater, with a fantastic, 23 minute epic song, and some other songs which are inferior to the huge track, but are still pretty good. The title track is too good to give it a 3/5, but the last 4 tracks are too weak for a 5/5, so 4/5 it is for this EP.