The Dreamside
Spin Moon Magic

The mastermind of this band, the singer Kemi Vita, is currently involved in no less than three projects, including, besides The Dreamside, also The Bloodline and Satyrian. Let's start with a premise: the music of the three bands could be summarized under a single name, given the many similarities present in their sounds. Ignoring these small but incomprehensible whims of musicians, I can say that the genre offered by The Dreamside is clearly electronic in nature, obviously composed of a base of synthetic sounds and wrapped in that cold erotic charge reminiscent of dark music so popular on German dance floors.

The sound of The Dreamside, at first approach, did not fully convince me due to the overabundance of electronic architectures, to which I must admit I have never been very attached and which I still cannot fully appreciate. But after some more in-depth listens, I have partly reconsidered.

In "Spin moon magic", the 2005 album, the voice of the beautiful Italian-Dutch singer (which closely reminded me of the shamanic and sensual nuances of Nebelhëxe in the latest album "Essensual") takes us through synthesizers and electronic percussion in episodes sometimes delicate, sometimes frenetic, sometimes full of pathos, sometimes endowed with engaging and danceable appeal, in which guitars and gothic rock elements only serve a decorative purpose. The cadenced and engaging opener "Into a frenzy" surprises, as does the subsequent "Forsaken", where Kemi engages in a captivating and memorable refrain comparable to a weakened, female version of Rammstein, within a track balancing between the romantic delicacy of synths, the electronic severity of percussion, and the gripping melody with a folk-rock aftertaste of the guitars. However, the cliché electro hints of "The feast is set", a piece where the vocal lines are irritating in their insistence on appearing perverse and sly, could have been avoided. As you might have guessed, I do not particularly love the overused combinations of dance-floor rhythms and dark music; however, if they are executed with class, I certainly won't hesitate to admit it. Obviously, this is not the case for the song in question, nor for the subsequent "Open your eyes", featuring Rogue from The Cruxshadows behind the microphone.

The band seems indeed to get lost in widely overused solutions in the previous tracks, without improving the fate of the album in the least. It turns out that almost all the following tracks are anchored to the already experimented and poorly executed fusion between electro-dark and gothic rock solutions. It is true, however, that there are some enjoyable moments, such as the entrance of a male voice in "Spin moon magic" or the solos in "Dreaming all of you" and "Joyfire". Nevertheless, this does not spare the group from a constant plunge into cold and expressionless territories, making the electronic patterns truly unbearable (as in the remix of "Die Hoffnung" placed at the end). There are, however, positive notes, such as "Song of the sirens", with its ambient reminiscence, "Nocturnal", laid on a never intrusive electronic carpet and adorned with passionate rock refrains, or the mix of acoustic pop, electronics, and gothic metal in "Slay your dragons". One song in particular, "Somewhere before", possesses a visionary, ancestral solemn, and alienating quality. It feels like being faced with another band, as if The Gathering of "Nighttime birds" met the most visionary of the new generation electro-goth artists.

The originality of the few appreciated songs in this context thus allows me to assign a full pass to "Spin moon magic", but it is truly a shame that such an intense song as "Somewhere before" has been buried within a context where, unfortunately, cliché solutions abound, completely lacking in passion, a necessary quality for the credibility of a band and indispensable for the good success of any album belonging to one of the branches of music as multifaceted as gothic.