Being a big worshipper of the first
Dream Evil album,
Dragonslayer, I thought the second album was a bit too rockish for my taste, but not bad at all, displaying good melodies and skillful playing, enduring the impression of a promising young band.
So, with one album I love and one I like, the third album seemed like a "make or break" to me.
The titletrack,
The Book Of Heavy Metal (March Of The Metallians) starts the album. Heavy guitar riffs with an almost nu-metal sort of sound and a very monotonous rhythm gives the song a simple profile and give a hint of what we are in for here: simple music with just a few riffs being repeated, save when the solos set in. Songs made after a recipe in the Book of Heavy Metal, eh? Like most of the rest of the album, the song isn't totally bad, nor great, it just creates a feeling of being needless and predictable.
The Sledge is another super simple, chorus based song, which seems an attempt to create some sort of oldschool rock feeling, but end up being too predictable and the good old rock feeling is absent.
No Way is a very
Ozzy Osbourne influenced track, where the band brought in a singer called Andy, who sounds like a copy of a young Ozzy. Could have turned out to be a fun little tribute song, but to me it's just too much! The structure is simple beyond words, and the copycat singer doesn't make it better. At most it's a fun song, if you get it.I just don't really, it looks like the band had fun doing it, but the joke seems for insiders only and I'm left in doubt, if this is a fun tribute or straight out theft masqueraded as such a thing.
Crusader's Anthem is one of the records best songs, a very melodic and atmospheric tune with a great chorus and an almost epic feeling to it. Nicely done, and with some good guitarplaying from the young Gus G. The emotional singing from Niklas Isfeldt also helps make this song a cool experience, not worldclass, but good, though the chorus limit is on the brink of being surpassed again.
Now we go traditional Hard Rock with the straight forward
Let's Make Rock, an easygoing tune, with a chorus that sticks to your brain, but nevertheless, still a little too much of a basic rock song for my taste, but the appeal should be there for classic Heavy Rock fans.
To me, the best song off of the album, is the half ballad
Chosen Twice with it's majestic huge choir arrangement and sweet melody, creating an almost bombastic vision. This is the only song I really like here, and the one which reminds me most of the first album (I guess it's loosely a continuation of the ballad from the first album called
Chosen Ones).
MOM is one of the better songs, here the simplistic musical expression of stripped down guitars and the vocal in front works out fine, creating a cool sing-a-long song, with lyrics that for once are okay, commenting on the macho image in Metal in an ironic tone (MOM is short for Man Or Mouse). I believe this is what they try to do all along, make fun sing-a-long tunes, but somehow it works better here.
In
The Mirror even the earhanging hooklines, which are present in most of the other songs, seem to lack, which leaves just a simple form and a feeling of anonymity. That makes this one of the most pointless and boring songs off the record.
The album ends with
Unbreakable Chain, the obligatory sugersweet ballad, which seems like completely unnecessary, especially on an album, which tries to inflict a fun Rock'N'Roll vibe all the way. It isn't that bad, actually, a sweet little melody, but in that kind of "good enough for background music" type of way, nothing that's really annoying, and nothing that's really appealing. Pointless, you may say.
The good aspects of the album: The music is well performed, especially I must draw attention to guitar youngster Gus G., who is clearly a skilled player, but the simple structures of a lot of the songs keep him from shining as much as could have been the case.
Some songs (as mentioned above) succeed in creating this easygoing Party rock feel, that is probably the goal for the album in general, and most songs are pretty catchy.
The downside of the album: I liked
Dream Evil's musical style on the first record a lot, straight ahead Power Metal, and their new hard rockish style doesn't appeal to me the same way. Of course this could have ended up being a great record anyway, but I just miss the melodies, the great arrangements, the Power and the emotions from the first and partly the second record.
The songwriting is kept at a minimum. Though there's lots of catchy hooklines, a lot of stuff is so simple, that you grow tired of the songs before they really get you in ecstasy.
The conclusion must be, that this is an album, which could appeal to some die-hard fans of classic Heavy Rock or Hard Rock, but for old
Dream Evil fans, this is a disappointment. The songs are too simple. Especially the guitar is often only a few riffs being repeated giving a monotonous impression, and making the songs go dull, before they have grown enough to make you really appreciate them. Furthermore, the lyrics and attitude seem so silly, I sometimes doubt if the band just want to play fun Metal or be taken just a bit serious. Some good hooklines and melodies can be found, and far from all tracks will make your ears bleed. The record holds a few really cool tracks, but most are just.well, not even horrible but just boring and trivial, which is almost worse!
Written by
Nina Thursday, July 1, 2004
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