J-Man Dream of Illusion is a fairly young Italian power metal act and Decadence is their debut album. The band manages to seamlessly blend the dirtiness of old school American heavy metal with the melodic choruses of the European power metal scene for a confident and impressive sound. Decadence isn't an essential album by any means, but it's a promising debut from these talented young lads that should impress most fans of the band's respective genre. Although the album is severely lacking in remarkable material, it has enough assets to make for an enjoyable listen.

The promo copy of Decadence that I have describes the album as "Solid Heavy Metal of American origin, with melodies that recall the more biting power in Germany". If I were asked to describe the album to anyone, I don't think I would've said any differently. This album takes the American traditional heavy metal scene and mixes it with Euro power metal for a generally positive result. Songs like "Born to Rock" particularly highlight the American sound, whereas tracks like "Back to the Evil Age" hint towards German power metal. This is unquestionably a talented group with a confident sound, but I think they still have a bit of work to do in the "memorable composition" department. None of the songs are "bad", but a very select amount of them stand out as something excellent. I'm confident that Dream of Illusion will develop more of a knack for memorable songwriting in the near future, however.

The production is polished and generally very good. My only complaint is that (just like Silver Lake's debut) there are some distortion-related hiccups in the promotional copy I have. Hopefully this glitch isn't in the retail version...

Decadence is a very competent debut from Dream of Illusion, but I'm not sure if there's enough outwardly remarkable material here to grant many more repeat listens from me. People who are curious about the modern Italian power metal scene may want to give this a shot, but Dream of Illusion will have to hone in on creating some more memorable compositions if they truly want to be recognized. Still, for the excellent musicianship and impressive sound, Decadence is worthy of a rock-solid 3 star rating. Fans of modern traditional heavy metal/power metal hybrids may want to give this a spin.