Band:	Wreche
Album:	All My Dreams Came True
Style:	Avantgarde metal
Release date:	May 14, 2021
A review by:	Netzach

01. Mysterium
02. Scherzo
03. In Agony, To The Earth - And Heaven
04. Severed
05. The Darkling Thrush
06. Les Fleurs I
07. Les Fleurs II

A metalhead pianist with ADHD goes into a? wait, where was I?

I know what you are thinking, but I am not talking about myself for once. I probably ought to claim otherwise, as I do not know anything about how Wreche's frontal lobe is wired, and I have heard that slander is a generally frowned upon activity. Yes, it is another one-man avant-garde black metal band, and I will soon have to review something completely different lest I be forever typecast. All My Dreams Came True sounded way too interesting to pass up, though. Guitarless black metal does not come around too often (Botanist comes to mind), and on this album there are only drums, screams, synths, and piano to be found.

Correction: damn beastly piano, and playing thereof, in a style as much classical as jazz as? well, metal. When it all comes together, the piano sounds as if Ludwig van Beethoven, Chick Corea, and Richard Wright met at a bar, decided to do a mashup of Rachmaninoff's 3rd Concerto and the 3rd movement of the Moonlight Sonata (which is pretty damn metal), but a few beers later followed some shady dude home to smoke crack, get mugged, and channeled their rage into extending Pink Floyd's "Sisyphus, Part 2" (which sounds like everything a piano would not want done to it) way beyond its crushing ending. This likely tells nobody anything of use, so I will just say that the result of their escapades is equal parts moody, weird, heavy, confusing, and impressive.

The drums are skillfully played as well, being rhythmically varied without losing their focus, albeit somewhat flat and papery sounding. Wreche did everything from recording to mixing to mastering himself, and this is black metal after all, so this is no big deal. Correction: it would not have been, had the synths not threatened to drown everything else out; at times, their mid-register electronic cutoff shenanigans bring a unique touch when paired with a bassy piano assault not unlike the latter half of aforementioned "Sisyphus, Part 2", but most of the time, their overblown and borderline omnipresent orchestral lushness fights with chaotic, trebly piano speedruns for a place in the mix to such a degree that I eventually fiddled with the equaliser to hear the piano more clearly.

The spaghetti method has taken me this far in life: throw ideas at the wall, see what sticks. In this case, the spaghetti was either way overcooked, or thrown at an exceptionally sticky wall. Moreover, All My Dreams Came True clocks in at over an hour (I repeat, I rarely want this), and the songs themselves are (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse) arranged like classical movements; what they lack in structure, they make up for in dramatics, but coupled with the overlong runtime and "spaghetti method done wrong" songwriting, even a bunch of listens in I have a hard time both keeping track of everything going on and remembering particularly standout moments? except for the centrepiece, "Severed", which you should do yourselves a favour and listen to right now. It is the longest track, but every puzzle piece comes together in the sweetest way for all of its 14 minutes.

Hence my (secretly not) self referential comment at the beginning. The concept is stellar, the performance is awe-inspiring, and the potential is clear as the ring of fire surrounding an eclipse. With some self editing and a clearer focus (and, I cannot believe I am saying this, less synths), Wreche has all the ingredients to create something spectacular next time around. Now? where was I?