Welcome back! This review is for the Swedish Metal band Dream Evil. Here is the brief background information to get started: Swedish band, formed in 1999-still formed, and they have had different guitarist and other band members over the years. There are five CDs from this band.
Bridget’s Dream Evil Review
The first CD, Dragonslayer, has 12 songs total. In the song “Heavy Metal in the Night”, you get this awesome riff, and the drums join in. It feels like the old epics from Homer if they had a Metal soundtrack; sounds like war, power, fame! About 2:50 or so into the song you get the start of the guitar solo. I loved how the guitarist entered in the solo by doing the sliding on the guitar. Throughout this song, they sound victorious. So, I listened to yet another song. So I tried the ballad “Losing You”, it is just the piano and the lead vocals, beautiful and painful, until 1:02 the guitar hits a strong strum, sending the shivers through even more than the start of the piano’s weeping melody. The guitar is slow, strong, and passionate, perfectly balancing out the piano’s sorrow and the vocal’s longing. The lyrics are powerful and it is done justice with the guitar and piano. As the song builds up vocally, the guitar solo starts using a lot of bending on the chords and strings and a lot of small slides; it makes the guitar sigh and cry.
The guitarist for this CD is Gus G. Hi is only 33 and is Greek. He has been with a lot of bands which include Arch Enemy and Ozzy. No wonder why he is so amazing! He is on Evilized and The Book of Heavy Metal. So, Evilized has 12 songs originally, however, since the band is infamous in Japan, they get three bonus tracks.
The song “Children of the Night” starts with a distorted rhythm guitar which leads into the lead guitar shredding. This song is calling out for all those lost souls, for all the insomniacs out there.
It is catchy and I could not help dancing to the guitars – lead and rhythm. “Children of the night, searching for the light…One can never be prepared” and then the shredding guitar solo kicks in at 2:33. I was singing along, the guitar solo picked back up. The guitar riffs are so…energetic and, well, metal! It seems to me, that the CDs going forward get better and better. The Rhythm guitarist has been there since 99’ – today; after all it is his band – Fredrik Nordstrӧm.
The second song for Evilized is “By My Side”, the moment I played this song, I went “woah…” my speech was taken from me from the drums and the rhythm guitar riff the started as soon as the YouTube video loaded. It is another fighting/war riff that pounds along side the drums. It is urgent and less about fun in a war like “Heavy Metal in the Night”. “By My Side” is more about pressing forward, loyalty and the stress of battle. You can hear the loss of war in the speed of the riff of the guitars and the drums. “dun dun dun dun…dun dun…(insert odd guitar solo here)”. By odd, I mean unique, I have yet to hear how the short solo is started anywhere else. It sounded almost techno like but is was purely just the guitar and how Gus G. was bending the strings and chords. You can hear the difference in the guitar riffs and solos from the two songs. “Heavy Metal in the Night” is saying “Yeah, let’s rape, pillage, and kill! We will win! We always are victorious, no matter the enemy!”. The guitars are joyous while you can still tell it is sounding like war, while “By My Side”’s riffs and solo is more about just surviving in war.
The third CD The Book of Heavy Metal, Gus G stayed around for the recording and was then replaced by Markus Fristedt for live performances of previous music and for the fourth CD United. I will not review the third CD as the line up of band members kept changing. You can hear the difference is though, and it is still a good CD musically. Just really confusing. As the singers, drummers, and guitarists were in and out of the album. The musical direction also changed slightly. But it isn’t of any complaint.
United, the fourth CD, has a great and fun opening song “Fire! Battle! In Metal!” It is just pure fun, with amazing entering guitars! It is, in my opinion, more pop-y however, because it is so catchy.
The lyrics are not intelligent at all, and it obviously for fun. 2:38 has a short guitar solo that should have been longer, as it was really fun and very enabling of dancing. The whole CD is very different. You can hear the change in drums and guitars, it is more tin sounding and more hammering and a kind of not so good but not bad either. I personally like it, yet miss the sound of the first two CDs. Some people might not welcome the change as much as I did, which is why I had stated it is not bad nor good. The guitar riff in “Let Me Go” is still really strong and unbridled, just, different in style. Markus is a lot different than Gus G and you can tell. This song’s major solo starts at 3:08 and is a lot more melodic and slower than that of Gus G. It is all about preference, I like both styles. So I will also talk about “Love is Blind” off of this CD. It starts slowly and builds up. no specific solo until 3:34. Until then, the slower parts are arranged awkwardly for the vocals and the heavier parts are better. The solo is pretty awesome as in one part sounded for Native American music-ish.
The Latest CD is In The Night. The first song “Immortal” had an awesome guitar riff and intro. the vocal are back to normal, the guitarist is Daniel Varghamne. His style is amazing, definitely better than Markus from United and is good if you preferred Gus G. No foul on Markus, he is just as talented, just a style preference for me. Even lyrically is back on track of the first two CDs.
“In The Night” is nice and heavy; it sounds like another war anthem. The riff during this song is distorted and angry; it seeps out demanding intentions to rally the troops. It is a war anthem for Metal music! The whole CD (not counting the Japan bonuses) is beautifully done. It is definitely a nice come back from all the line up issues.The only thing is, the CD’s theme, it is about being a rock star, about being in a metal band, about hardship and beliefs.
The only thing is, Daniel left and Markus came back, so the current line up is: Fredrik (rhythm), Niclas (vocals), Peter (bass), Pat (drums), and Markus (lead guitar).
Each musician is amazing. It just comes down to preferences.
Ratings:
I will rate things from a talent perspective to prevent my own biases
CDs Overall 10/10
Guitarist(s) 10/10
Band overall 10/10
Each member has talent, and each CD has something for everyone. I would have spent more time on each CD but probably would be a novella if I analyzed every detail.
Review by Bridget.
Bridget is a professional writer. Her hobbies include guns, knives, and archery. Dream Evil image shot in 2008 by Anchjo. Anchjo allowed this image to be used as Public Domain. Thanks Anchjo! Image of Bridget used by her permission.