A CHANGE OF SEASONS

A mini-album by their standards - the first half is a side-long epic, and the remainder is a bunch of cover versions performed live. The 23-minute title track is standard Dream Theater fare. A series of musical episodes, with plenty of extravagant instrumental solos, constant chopping and changing. It's not their best, the musical ideas aren't nearly as good as those from say, "Images and Words". I'd only recommend this to those who already know and like Dream Theater.

The covers are listenable on the whole, straightforward interpretations of the originals. First we have a couple of Elton John numbers - they easily pull off that piano style, but it's a bit repetitive dragged on for 10 minutes. Deep Purple's "Perfect Strangers" is suitably ponderous, but a singer with a rougher voice would have suited this song better. The Led Zeppelin songs, on the other hand, definitely suit James LaBrie's theatrical voice, even though the instrumental style is an interesting diversion for the band. The medley starts with a convincing verbatim rendition of Pink Floyd's "In the Flesh". After a bit of crowd-pleasing Bohemian Rhapsody and some random mediocre plod rock, they finish with the strangely cheesy choice of Genesis's "Turn It On Again".