Dream Death
Journey Into Mystery

Hello everyone. This is my first review, and I hope it can be called that by those who read it. I'm not very experienced, but as we know, there's always a first time for many things, and I think a little indulgence is in order.

I'd like to start with a funny little fact: one of the most prolific reviewers in the underground metal field is Tepes; well, I know (recently) this person and I wonder if they'll be able to recognize me.

Very well, that said, let's begin. We are in the mid-1980s, in Pittsburgh, United States. Dream Death is a quartet formed in 1984, releasing two demos and then their only (so far) album, the debut masterpiece. Because yes, this album is a masterpiece. In the metal field, both mainstream and underground, many bands seemed to have secured a nearly certain sphere of survival. No one expected the arrival of grunge, which would wipe out many acts, from Poison to Death Angel.

BUT: there were still two to three years before the arrival of grunge, and much was yet to be said. In the underground field, that year was the year of doom masterpieces ("Day Of Reckoning" by Pentagram and "Run To The Light" by Trouble) and the birth of death metal. In short, there was a lot of exploration in this musical field. At the same time, a new genre (later called crossover) began to emerge, which didn't have much to do with the modern one, whose artists came from hardcore and appreciated thrash like D.R.I. and Cro-Mags.

Perhaps Dream Death, in their own way, attempted similar experiments in a different key; yes, because this forgotten album is a perfect fusion of doom, thrash, and death elements! At first glance, it might seem like heresy to combine thrash and doom (speed and slowness), but it's precisely this rather rigid perspective that must be abandoned: Dream Death (amidst influences from major doom groups, you find Motorhead, Angel Witch, The Obsessed, and Celtic Frost) are searching for a sound where in various moments a main sound is associated with secondary elements, in a continuous interchange of sounds within the same songs. The quartet (drummer, bassist, guitarist, and guitarist-singer) creates a deliberately raw and somewhat ignorant sound, with an attitude mixing hardcore with Celtic Frost (from the 1984-1987 period), creating unhealthy, exhausting atmospheres where the voice paints pictures of gore-like violence from splatter films set in the underground tunnels of alienating Western metropolises of the late 1900s. Here and there, the guitars, as in "sealed in blood", seem to point to early death metal, while elsewhere a distorted doom sound in an almost thrash manner continuously transports the listener to the environments described above.

Bass and drums work hard in simple but convincing and direct construction, with easy rhythms never interpreted banally, where the absence of the double bass drum is often noticeable. Because yes, from not great performers and from typical period productions (almost garage) made with little money, interpretation could only stand out more. The production and mixing are just above those of punk, hardcore, or demos. The voice is based on reminiscences of good old Cronos, which bring some black metal contributions to the album, but in some glimpses with a bit of attention, you can glimpse the hidden shadow of Ian Fraiser Kilminster and his violent acids, well understood at the time by this quartet. And then? The usual story: two years pass and three-quarters of the lineup transform into Penance, a much more canonical and standard doom group.

In conclusion: highly recommended, remember to listen with an open mind and contextualize the various aspects, especially that of a sound that enhances atmosphere more than technique, although the latter never falls below the high standards.