DREAMING DEAD — Midnightmares (review)

DREAMING DEAD — Midnightmares album cover Album · 2011 · Melodic Death Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Time Signature
Wake...

Genre: melodic death metal

Melodeath can be good, and it can be bad. It can be really good, and it can be really bad. A lot of melodeath is just a watered down imitation of the once so mighty Gothenburg-sound, but some melodeath can be really awesome and groundbreaking. For my money At The Gates' Slaughter of the Soul and Carcass' Heartwork as well as early releases by Inflames plus most releases by Dark Tranquility and Arch Enemy belong to the category of really awesome melodeath as do more obscure releases such as Cyanotics The Chasm Within and Mindmare's Disordered Existence. American metallers Dreaming Dead's Midnightmares belong to this group of awesome melodeath releases.

Importantly, although it is quite obviously inspired by the likes of At the Gates and Dark Tranquility, Midnightmares does not sound like a tame imitation of Gothenburg-metal. Drawing on black metal and featuring ferocious blastbeats, Dreaming Dead take their music in their very own direction, as they manage to very successfully create a near perfect equilibrium between the brutal and the melodic. At times, they even come across as being quite progressive, featuring a couple of Opeth-style mellow passages, and they also infuse their music with tech death metal elements (just check out a track like 'Exile'). Rather than blindly copying the style of Swedish nelodeath giants, Dreaming Dead seem to look to their own American hinterland for inspiration, and, thus, there appears to be somewhat of an influence from Chuck Schuldiner's classic Death releases on this album, too, which I personally appreciate a lot. And this is the source of another progressive side to Dreaming Dead's music.

It is difficult to pick highlights from an album where all the songs are extremely good, but there is one particular track that really stands out to me, and that is the instrumental 'In Memoriam', because it takes the listener through a variety of impressions and because it really captures how the entire album is both multi-facetted and yet incredibly focused. It should be mentioned that, although my favorite track on the album is an instrumental, I do not have any problems with the growled singing style that characterizes the rest of the album, which is delivered very convincingly by Elizabeth Schall Elliot.

For my money, Midnightmares is an example of compelling and innovative melodeath which retains the darkness and brutality of extreme metal and but still manages to be incredibly melodic without descending into the pop hell that a lot of Gothenburg-based acts find themselves in these days. If you are into melodic death metal and have not yet acquired Dreaming Dead's Midnightmares, hurry up and buy it now.

(review originally posted at seaoftranquility.org)
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Le bannissement Atmospheric Black Metal
CANTIQUE LÉPREUX
Buy this album from MMA partners
Tarantula Heart Sludge Metal
MELVINS
Buy this album from MMA partners
God Damned You To Hell Traditional Doom Metal
FRIENDS OF HELL
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Absence Melodic Death Metal
THE ABSENCE
Buy this album from MMA partners
Unextinct Technical Death Metal
HIDEOUS DIVINITY
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Fallen Ashes - Wage War (Official Lyric Video)
FALLEN ASHES
Bosh66· 8 days ago
EXISTENTIAL DEAD - Unreality (Single) 2024
EXISTENTIAL DEAD
Bosh66· 8 days ago
EXISTENTIAL DEAD - Cold Hands
EXISTENTIAL DEAD
Bosh66· 8 days ago
IRON MONKEY - Misanthropizer (Official Music Video)
IRON MONKEY
Bosh66· 10 days ago
??? (Losing ART) - "????" (Official Music Video) [HD]
漂浮者樂團
Bosh66· 11 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed