Dreamtone
Sojourn
4.4
Synopsis:
+3 Vorpal Power Metal of Ostentation fails to save against the Spell of Adolescent Storytelling...
Review:
Wohoa, man, where to begin? This is power trad with an interestingly horrible singer. It's produced on the cheap, yet played with style and confidence and written with love and honor….this record is just a damned messy enigma dipped in outhouse stew. I don’t listen to a shitload..well, ANY power trad bands, so these guys might sound like someone else, but if they do, I have no idea who it is. And while the BASIC MUSIC is pretty fucking good, the stylistic and vocal decisions are fucking atrocious.
How best to describe each aspect? The band is as tight and bright as any in the genre, and can create some really powerful music when not distracted by the need to get cutesy with the keys and spoken word. But distracted they get, and cutesy they become. And the singer sounds like - not that this will do you any good, but he sounds like my brother making fun of Luciano Pavorati in the shower. “Overwrought” fails to capture the forced melodrama. “Annoying” fails to capture the irritation. The guy isn't very good, but in a wonderfully comical “drunken sibling“ way.
The songwriting is a heartbreaking combination of great Metal ideas shat upon by the worst Metal ideas. Take some mid paced, chunky and well played Heavy Metal any band could be proud of and tie it to the bumper of Suck with stories about angels and demons and whatever, explained in spoken interludes that sound like an American David Bowie from Labyrinth without the muppets or hot teenage actress. Sprinkle the whole thing with (you know what’s coming) incongruous fairytale keyboard masturbation. Then start that fucker up and drive it through the streets of Tedium.
The production is so tinny and canned only the power of the basic three piece heart of the group can save it. The guitars, drums and bass keep this project from sinking into an utter festering wound of a record. If they shitholed the singer and key player they might be able to form a real metal band worth listening to.
So the bottom line, predictably enough, is that this is only for diehard RPG Metallers. The basic foundation makes it worth an online listen for the average Metalhead, but the crap production, crap vocals, crap keys and crap storytelling make this frighteningly unrecommendable.
