Band:	Dark The Suns
Album:	Sleepwalking In A Nightmare
Style:	Gothic metal
Release date:	November 2010

01. Insomnia
02. Devoid Of The Sun
03. Wounded By Broken Dreams
04. World Stood Still
05. Don't Fear The Sleep
06. Last Farewell
07. Walking With An Angel
08. Into The Blind World
09. Lake Of A Thousand Tears
10. Requiem For A Dream

The latest album of Dark The Suns takes a not so sharp, but evident, turn from its predecessors. I suppose that the line-up changes and a different approach lead to the band evolving and exploring some new areas, so here before us is Sleepwalking in a Nightmare, an album which isn't really memorable but overall gives a nice little listen.

This is a concept album, pretty much telling the story of someone sleepwalking in his own nightmare (you kinda wanna give credit to the guys for letting you know what you will listen to when naming the album), which (spoiler alert) actually never ends. It's a pretty good backstory to begin with, though I'd like it to be a more claustrophobic type of thing. Here it was melancholic, touchy, and kind of cold. If we look at the lyrics of the entire album as a whole, they're not really cohesive, you only find out for real in the last song or two that all the events described were connected. Also, the lyricist is having a bit of a feud with grammar, and a whirlwind romance with cheese ("You hold my hand in the end of the time and I hear you singing in eternal night/Let the world become our kingdom where the darkness kills the light/The world is weeping in forever rain and I hear you whisper don't fear the sin" - is there any one of you instantly reminded of your first "dark" poems written back when you were 15?), but the lyrics are better than on the previous two albums, and I'm a sucker for concepts, so it's all right. We have some refreshing changes in the vocal department - there's a female vocalist stirring things up and making them more approachable, she's got a very beautiful voice, not operatic but smooth. Also, the main male vocalist has learned a thing or two, harsh vocals are a lot more varied and that's a nice improvement.

In the music department, things are way different than where we left them in 2009. There is no more Suomi metal, the band has totally shifted closer to things tagged as gothic metal here. Again it's very melodic but the melodies have much more drama and flair in them - I'm not a fan of drama, but I must admit I enjoyed it a lot. There are no more guitar leads - opposed to the songwriting, which can get cheesy with all the drama I mentioned before, interpreting those melodies is more sustained and sombre. There's a lot of violin and similar sounds, sometimes even bordering symphonic waters. There are a lot of bands doing that now so they should be careful if they wish to continue playing that style in the future. This album is a bit slower in tempo, the drumming is not so catchy as on the previous two, and overall this isn't what we're used to, but the music is of same quality, and I believe fans of the previous style can enjoy stuff like this as well.

I've rated Sleepwalking In A Nightmare a few points higher than All Ends In Silence, and, to tell you the truth, I don't know why I seemed to like it more, I'm not a huge fan of this "drowning-in-frozen-tears-here-comes-the-violin-here-come-sad-angels" type of music, and I usually prefer listening to music more in vein of Suomi metal when I'm up for something lightweight and sad. But time passed me quicker when I was listening to this one - hence the bigger rating. Anyway, I'll be sure to watch these guys in the future to see what they're up to next, and you should too, they've got some potential.