Search - Dream Theater :: Official Bootleg: Master of Puppets

Another great cover set

Justin Gaines | Northern Virginia | 07/06/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Dream Theater, arguably the world's premiere progressive metal band, started a tradition a few years ago of covering classic albums during certain tour stops. The band would play a set of their own material, take a break, and then cover one of their favorite albums in its entirety. So far the band has covered Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast, Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, and Metallica's Master of Puppets.



Master of Puppets is an extremely important metal album, and while it isn't always evident amidst all of Dream Theater's sprawling progressive rock songs, it was definitely a major influence to the band when they were starting out (and later on, if Train of Thought is any indicator). I think Dream Theater does the album justice with this performance. The whole thing is a bit of a stretch for vocalist James LaBrie. His vocal style has little in common with James Hetfield's, so this isn't one of his better performances. Poor Jordan Rudess must have felt like the odd man out, as Master of Puppets is a keyboard-free album. Still, he managed to put his stamp on some of the songs, which made for some interesting interpretations of these classic songs.



Dream Theater's version of Master of Puppets is a must-have for die hard Dream Theater fans, and should prove interesting to most Metallica fans as well. It's a live performance, but the sound quality is quite good. It's probably not up to the standard of Dream Theater's traditional live releases, but it's definitely a cut above the typical bootleg recording.



NOTE: These albums were issued as part of the Ytsejam Records Official Bootleg series, and were produced by Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy. A few are out of print, but most are still readily available from the label.

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