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Dreaming Dead - Midnightmares review



Reviewer:
6.0

17 users:
7.24
Band: Dreaming Dead
Album: Midnightmares
Release date: April 2012


01. Wake
02. Midnightmares
03. Overlord
04. Corpse Mtn
05. In Memoriam
06. Lapse
07. Into The Abyss
08. Exile
09. Departure

Progressive melodic death? Well, this will probably sure make a lot of people out there very happy.

God only knows why.

Progressive melodic death metal is a pretty broad term, right? I mean, what kind of influences, or curve balls does this album throw at you? The answer is none. Don't bother looking for them. Midnightmares is utterly dry-cut and generic. Maybe this whole thing would be interesting if acoustic passages were something new to metal...but it isn't. Melodic riffing you've heard before tossed in between an annoying amount of predictably unpredictable tempo shifts.

...And a vocalist who is trying to sound like Chuck Schuldiner...very poorly, mind you. There is plenty of Death worship going on here, but the vocals are most prominent. Those gravelly falsetto type Schuldiner vocals sung with a really, really thin delivery seem to dominate this album.

Dreaming Dead does have talent, though, which is why somebody out there will undoubtedly worship this sleeping pill. Extremely tight technical abilities paired up with clean, accessible, catchy leads topped off with obvious influence from a universally respected band? Seems like a bad mix for unnecessary praise.

Maybe Dreaming Dead are capable of pulling off something that isn't entirely boring and predictable. This band is only on their 2nd album with Midnightmares, and it is a nice display in performance abilities, regardless of the lack of creativity. Aside from the vocalist, Dreaming Dead is another band of decent musicians deciding to play songs written half-assed. Perhaps this is a band to revisit on a future release?





Written on 04.05.2012 by Former EIC. Now just a reviewer guy.


Comments

Comments: 7   Visited by: 104 users
04.05.2012 - 03:05
Boxcar Willy
yr a kook
Would not touch with a ten-foot pole.
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14:22 - Marcel Hubregtse
I do your mum

DESTROY DRUM TRIGGERS
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04.05.2012 - 04:48
Unhealer
Eclecticist
I don't think the vocalist was trying to sound like Chuck. She probably didn't want to growl like Angela Gossow or the chick from The Agonist and he went for mid-high screams which just happen to sound something close to post-Symbolic Chuck.

That is actually weird.

Anyway, the track I've heard got me interested, I'll check it out.
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04.05.2012 - 06:44
Troy Killjoy
perfunctionist
Not gonna lie, but you actually piqued my interest with this review. Maybe because I want to see how something that sounds so good on paper can actually sound so bland. Will go in without any expectations as usual.
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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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04.05.2012 - 23:04
silenius

The vocals sound very bland and dry, a meh-album tbh, didnt find it to be either good or bad, just bland.
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05.05.2012 - 02:52
Troy Killjoy
perfunctionist
Not sure what they did in the recording studio, but she sounds more like a black metal vocalist live.



Still haven't listened to the album yet - was just busy playing around on Youtube and came across this. Just thought it was interesting reading about how she's this like high-pitched Shuldiner wannabe and then I get this chick screeching as if she was possessed by Abbath.

PS her growls aren't too shabby either - slightly guttural and coherent.
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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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06.05.2012 - 00:04
thefallenalchmst

Damn, I don't know about the rest of you, but I enjoyed the fuck out of this. I went through the disc two and three times. The vocals really aren't that big a deal, plus she had some good lines in portions of the songs. I think that metalheads these days seem to whine too much about shit not sounding completely perfect. How is this bland? Deadborn, that's bland. This, I heard all sorts of interesting shit from first to last track, and the instrumentals had plenty of layers. This is about the furthest thing from bland, and is probably one of my favorite albums of the year.

The death influence is there, and I think it's a good tribute to their sound, while still trying to add some modern influences. I gave this disc a 9.0, but perhaps I'm hearing something different then the rest of you. Even the youtube comments from their video seem to be very positive. People there seem to like the Death influence that this band has. I literally couldn't find one song that sucked, but I tried to.

At least give this shit a chance. You know, everybody's got different tastes and I really liked this shit. That doesn't mean that you will, but it doesn't mean that you won't either. People here seem to be rather elitist about metal here, and I don't personally like that. There are millions of billions of metal fans in the world, and at the end of the day everybody's gonna like what they like. I dug this shit, so take it or leave it.
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www.thegrimtower.com (updated ftequently with reviews and interviews!)

www.torii.bandcamp.com (black/doom/death)
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23.05.2012 - 05:52
LizSchall

I like Death. Wouldn't consider myself a fan at all really, and certainly not an influence. It's so bizarre how my band is always compared to them. Weird.

Thanks all for sharing your comments.

~Liz
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