I've always been fairly ambivalent towards cover versions. It's difficult to ruin a great song, no matter how badly it's played. Orgy thrashed up New Order's "Blue Monday" on their "Candyass" CD, and The Times sung the same song in French with an ambient background, but are either of these versions better than the original? Not really. Joy Division were a band whose songs lent themselves to good cover versions - Warrior Soul playing "24 hours" and "Interzone", and Therapy?'s "Isolation". But could Warrior Soul or Therapy? have written these songs? Probably not.

Queensryche had generally stayed away from covers - the only recorded covers before this were Lisa Dalbello's "Gonna get close to you" (which I'm betting sounds nothing like the original) and "Scarborough Fair" which 'metalised' Simon & Garfunkel's rendition. On the whole, I'm also fairly ambivalent towards this release (which was apparently recorded in 11 days). I knew about half the songs presented here beforehand, and I don't feel I've missed anything by not knowing the other half. This is not a release I can whole-heartedly recommend.