Album Review: Dream Evil - Metal Gods
Reviewed by Richard Oliver
After what feels like an eternity (it’s actually been seven years), Dream Evil are back with a new album and their seventh offering of heavy metal goodness “Metal Gods”. The band hadn’t disappeared since their last record in 2017 but “We have just been lazy!” in the words of guitarist and band mastermind Fredrik Nordström. ”It’s been a long time. Mainly because we were all busy, to be honest. We have so many children between us in the band, and it’s hard to find time to get stuff together”.
The band finally found the time and the result is a charged album of heavy metal anthems which sits comfortably in the space between European power metal and traditional heavy metal. The album is quite a varied one from powerhouse tunes such as ‘Lightning Strikes’, ‘Fight In The Night’ and ‘Night Stalker’ to more epic anthems such as ‘Chosen Force’, ‘The Tyrant Dies At Dawn’ and ‘Y.A.N.A.’.
I love a great heavy metal song all about heavy metal and Dream Evil delivers a cracker with the brilliantly cheesy title track. A lot of power metal these days tends to be very driven by the keyboards and whilst there is keyboard use throughout the album it is very much a background instrument with the songs very much driven by the power of the guitar riff and the stunning vocals from frontman Niklas Isfeldt. The band sound in tremendous form and it is virtually the same line-up as previous album “Six” with only drummer Sören Fardvik making his recording debut with the band but has been a member since 2019.
If you don’t get along with power metal then “Metal Gods” isn’t going to change your mind but if you are a fan of power, melodic or traditional heavy metal then you will find loads to enjoy in this release. The seven year gap between albums and the time taken to fine tune and craft “Metal Gods” seems to have worked wonders and it is easily the best album the band have done in years.
