By Jonny Bakes
I’ll be honest, Dream Evil are one of those bands that I’ve only ever listened to one of their songs. When I was in Aston RockSoc, every Wednesday night you could guarantee that at some point during the general drunken debauchery you would hear the whole pub wailing along to ‘The Book of Heavy Metal’. And I’m not exaggerating, we’re talking dozens of people wailing in varying keys and generally making a hell of a racket, but we loved it. I’ve never really understood why I didn’t decide to get more familiar with Dream Evil on the back of this, but I guess I can rectify that now by checking out their latest offering – ‘Metal Gods’.
With my limited experience in the world of Dream Evil, I’m expecting something that captures that cheesy power metal essence and shoves it in your face with wails galore and a catchy rhythm. After all, it seems to have been the band’s opus memorandi since their inception in 1999. While they rattled off albums in quick succession in their early years, things have slowed down somewhat in the 2010s and beyond… from a strike rate of an album per year in the early 2000s we find ourselves with a seven year gap since the last album, so let’s see whether this has been worth the wait.
The opening track ‘Metal Gods’ certainly does not disappoint, but considering it was chosen as the reading single, it would have been a real problem if it did! With references to both Maiden’s ‘Number of the Beast’ and Manowar’s ‘Battle Hymns;’, this is another powerful tribute to the world of metal that’s almost as catchy as ‘The Book of Heavy Metal’. Niklas Isfeldt’s vocals are still as strong as ever with plenty of high notes (although not quite as high as he used to hit) which I’m sure many will have great fun trying to emulate. ‘Metal Gods’ is a real headbanging anthem that will please power metal fans across the globe, much like ‘The Book of Heavy Metal’ it’s a song that can unify rooms through the love of metal and all things leather and studs!
With such a strong opening track, you may expect that you’re in for a cover to cover stream of absolute belters, but alas that wasn’t quite the case.
For me, the album started to lose momentum as it went on, with more of the same level of cheese and power metal pomp. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing however, as that’s absolutely my scene and I’m totally here for it, but it did become just a bit less remarkable as things went on. The album has riffs galore, plenty of synth and whole bucketfuls of singalong opportunities which suits me down to a tee, but towards the end of the album this all starts to bleed into a single entity which is a shame.
That being said, ‘Insane’ towards the back end of the album managed to become a bit of an earworm. There’s something about the pre-chorus that sounds a bit like an ’80s song, in fact it’s something that is so familiar that it’s annoying the hell out of me that I can’t put my finger on what it is! Other than that, ‘Insane’ is a pretty fun song that talks about, you guessed it, insanity. The catchy and upbeat melody that is ripped right out of ’80s hair metal has an infectious groove to it that will get a room bouncing for sure. Although it’s not something that is likely to win over new fans and drag them kicking and screaming into the power metal genre.
All in all, ‘Metal Gods’ is a fun album and one that shows exactly what ‘Dream Evil’ are all about – catchy songs steeped in heavy metal history taking influences from some of the greats of the ’70s and ’80s. You’ll notice hints of Iron Maiden and Saxon for sure as well as all your favourite cheesy metal throwbacks. The songs are so catchy that they’re likely to cause involuntary humming as you listen through it, but some of them end up being fleeting memories as they fail to latch into the brain. For fans of Dream Evil, this will be seen as a pretty solid effort but I wonder if it will be seen to live up to their earlier albums?
That aside, power metal fans will find something to enjoy here, I’m sure, but some may find themselves moving on to something else before the album finishes…
- ‘Metal Gods‘ is out now.
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