ONCE IN A LIVETIME

My brother happened to have this CD before I had even heard of Dream Theater. I listened to this over and over and tried to like them, but I couldn't get into it. It's far too "metal" for my tastes, with little of what makes "progressive" music great. A personal preference, of course...

The songs are very loud and distorted. Even the really good studio songs are horribly mutated into something unlistenable. If you really want to enjoy Dream Theater and you are not a huge metal fan, buy the studio versions instead. These versions make my head spin, it used to make me want to throw up when I listened to them on headphones.

To be honest, I am not the biggest fan of Dream Theater in general. I wrote most of this review when I was a kid - 15 years old - and nowadays I really only enjoy parts of "Scenes from a Memory" and bits of "Inner Turbulence." So perhaps if you enjoy live albums and heavy metal more than I do, you would enjoy this - but I don't at all.