Case in point, Dreaming Dead. I’ve been aware of the band’s existence for awhile now. I’ve even checked out past material with the intent of purchase. Though whatever the reason, I have yet to acquire any of their releases or even heard an entire full-length until now, with their third full-length release, Funeral Twilight. Something I will definitely have to rectify, as I found Funeral Twilight highly enjoyable with their blend of death, thrash, and progressive metal. Culling a sound that blends heavily, both musically and vocally, from bands such as Death, Pestilence, Atheist, Ripping Corpse, Hate Eternal, and Astarte;   more than just a sum of their influences, Dreaming Dead know how to deliver the goods.

Eight songs in total make up Funeral Twilight, the album clocking in at a compact twenty-nine minutes. The track listing and flow I like a lot, seeming to be a bit more thought out than slapped together like some bands are guilty of. The album’s vocal laced tracks are separated into halves by instrumental “Remnants of a Time Long Forgotten”; a short, simple, doom drenched chord driven number with a nice and slow Katatonia like melody. Backing it up a it, album opener, “Your Grave” does a good job at setting the mood for things to come, with its tremolo picked riffs and just enough technical flair weaving seamlessly behind and between evocative and emotive solo work. One can strongly hear the Death/Chuck Schuldiner style of writing is a big influence for  Dreaming Dead guitarist/vocalist, Elizabeth Schall, on the album’s title track. With a wonderful “Death” hook, and a nice brutality, rather than “brootality”, the song moves and flows with a purpose other than decapitations and corpse molestations. The lead work is impressive and the rhythms flow in smooth blackened flavored melodies that are never overpowering. “No Masters” continues to impress with a bass beginning followed by rhythm and lead juxtaposing veering into blasty fields. Progressive like in its approach, weaving deathly riffs around bass that shines nicely in the mix, the guitar work is somewhat ethereal, as the drums truly keep the majority of the intensity. The song achieving a feeling of teetering on the brink of something larger and/or cataclysmic.

  Funeral Twilight‘s “second half”, after the aforementioned “Remnants of a Time Long Forgotten”, seems to possess a bit less memorability than the album’s first three tracks, but more than makes up for any loss of groove with an increased viciousness and intensity. Fast, blasting drums and grinding death riffs open up “Widowed”, hinting at Schall’s guitarist role in Cretin having a tad bit of bleed over influence to Dreaming Dead. The dual vocal attack at times is a nice touch, as well as the pulling back of the grinding just long enough to let some old school metal soloing shine. “Buried” continues to bring the blasts, as drummer, Mike Caffell, really propels not only this track, but the music as a whole on the entire album. His skills are impressive and the man is furiously tight within the material. Blastbeats, bass and rung chords create quite the setting for some tasty soloing and straight up rocking out to come in and tear things up before shifting flawlessly back to speedier, deathly realms. As one might assume from just the title alone, “Beyond the Black Moon” has more of a blackened feel going for it. The track has a solid groove prevailing amongst the blackened thrash, with dual vocals again helping bring added power and intensity in certain spots, while the song’s faux stop and continued groove at the 3:26 mark is simply awesome.

The band close out Funeral Twilight with instrumental “Unseeing”, a good track in reality, but a bit of a letdown to my ears. The song builds slowly and emotionally in the simple effective guitar, almost trance inducing in its peacefulness. The 2:11 mark brings slides of power as drums and chords come together in  wonderfully basic explosions. Unfortunately, the instrumental fails to deliver on the emotive buildups captured, leaving “Unseeing” in a heap of “what if”. Like I said, it’s a good track, but being the longest song on the album, I felt a little more of an aural payoff was due.

Obviously, I enjoyed Funeral Twilight. It’s a damn good album. Blackened, but not black. Thrashy, but not thrash. Melodic death infused, but with more of a sinister angularity than melo-death typically coveys. While it won’t have you singing the praises of a new Celtic Frost or Death or the likes of, it is easily, an impressive and pummeling listen. The songs are there, not just the same derivative banality served over and over.

Maybe this album just came as a bit of fresh air from the massive amounts of horror/gore metal I had been listening to at the time of this review. Or maybe, Dreaming Dead are just a top notch, quality band. A band that has yet to be really recognized as the formidable act that they are. An act that seems to be poised to push it further in that next level of the ‘ol international metal scene, with their best material still to come.

Don’t get me wrong, Dreaming Dead is not lacking of talent. “Overlord” has a pretty technical main riff going on and a nice, blistering lead in the middle of the song. The addition of clean guitars for the breakdown mixes it up – a little unexpected – before returning to the main riff. There is also a pretty good melodic lead in “Exile” that is contrasted to the more stuttering main riffs. Of course, it’s not all death metal all the time, as Dreaming Dead does take the chance to explore a more progressive side with various sound effects and use of different percussive instruments and clean guitars, such as on the opening introduction track, “Wake”, the closing instrumental track “Departure”, and “In Memoriam” – an instrumental track that recalls some of Sound of Perseverance and Eucharist‘s Mirrorworlds with its suspended arpeggios and strummed minor third power chords, although it does drag on at nearly six and a half minutes and lack of any direction.

Throughout the album, Elizabeth Schall – guitars and lead vocals – does her best Chuck Schhuldiner impression. She has the lower register that he was using during Human and Symbolic but does not really do much to mix it up (no high pitches) however, she is sometimes accompanied by bassist Juan Ramirez and drummer Mike Caffell for some pretty dense, and brutal layered vocals. The slow, doom-paced track “Lapse” and the more epic “Corpse Mountain” are some standout examples of the vocal layering.

There is nothing inherently wrong with Dreaming Dead‘s sophomore album. Sonically it does sound good, with each instrument, even the bass(!), getting equal attention, and they even got Travis Smith – purveyor of most modern metal album covers – to do the artwork for Midnightmares. All I know is that I’ll just wake up from the Midnightmare and not remember anything except for a female, zombie Chuck Schulinder fronting a Death tribute band that also happens to mix in Eucharist into their sound.

“Dreaming Dead are very pleased to announce that we will be hitting the road with death metal masters Monstrosity for the East Coast leg of their upcoming U.S. tour! This will be our first time performing on the East Coast and our first time sharing the stage with this legendary act. Needless to say, we are quite excited about having the opportunity to get out there and tear it up for everyone. Plus, this works out nicely for us because when we part ways with Monstrosity we’ll be picking up with Master and Pathology to round out the rest of the U.S. on our unrelated, but oh so conveniently placed Summer tour. Mwahaha! Chances are we’ll be playing close to YOU in the near future, so come out to the shows! We’re bringin some heavy shit and a good time… ”  

Experience the brutality on the following dates:

(with Monstrosity and Torn The Fuck Apart)

7/1 – Deja Vu Nightclub – Stuart, FL
7/2 – Volume 11- Raleigh, NC
7/3 – The Half Shell – Virginia Beach, VA
7/4 – The Alhambra Arena – Philadelphia, PA
7/5 – Dub Land Underground – Rochester, NY
7/6 – The Lost Horizon – Syracuse, NY
7/7 – Talking Head – Baltimore, MD
7/9 – Zanies Too – Indianapolis, IN 

(with Master and Pathology)

July 10 – The Rock – Maplewood, Mn
July 11 – The Elbo Room – Chicago, Il
July 12 – Mac’s Bar – Lansing, Mi
July 14 – The Muse – Nashville, Tn
July 16 – Schotzi’s – College Station, Tx
July 17 – Walter’s – Houston, Tx
July 18 – The Pit at Jasobi’s – San Antonio, Tx
July 20 – The Compound – Albuquerque, NM
July 21 – UB’s – Bar Mesa, Az
July 22 – The Jumping Turtle – San Marcos, Ca
July 23 – The Knitting Factory – Hollywood, Ca
July 24 – Annie’s Social Club – San Francisco, Ca
July 25 – The Cheyenne Saloon – Las Vegas, Nv
July 27 – Union Station – Colorado Springs, Co
July 28 – Knickbockers – Lincoln, Ne
July 29 – The Riot Room – Kansas City, Mo
July 31 – The Canopy Club/CIM 2009 – Urbana, Il

One aspect I really like about the album is they’ve got it wrapped up in just 8 tracks across approximately 40 minutes – no needless intros, outros or interludes. They get the ball rolling with “Stairs into the Vortex”, opening with a galloping thrash rhythm that abruptly gives way to a blast driven verse and back again. Their versatility begins to show on the follow up title track, where more melody comes into play, alternating with, or sometimes laid over the top of blasting segments. “Putrid is the Sky” explores some slower tempos, coming off as kind of doom-y and melodic after a clean picked, somber sounding intro. The second half of the song however, kicks into full gear with some rigid and speedy riffing accompanied by more blasting. “Cursed” and “Shadows in the Dark” bring the speed and gallop back, the latter of which bears a strong Deceased vibe at times, but “Perpetual Pretext” introduces some fantastic death metal groove between thrashing parts. The best of the lot however is album closer “Manslaughter” (which, in title at least, is an ode to the bands past, as they were originally called Manslaughter before settling on the H.P. Lovecraft inspired Dreaming Dead), beginning with the sound of rain and rolling thunder, an eerie and excellent clean picked guitar is introduced and builds, later joined by bass and drums. At the 3:30 mark, the song just explodes into death thrash chaos, topped off with a scathing vocal performance.

Ms. Schall can solo too – and not just mindless shred – there is some tasteful lead work scattered all over the album, but the solo work in “Putrid is the Sky”, “Shadows in the Dark”, “Cursed”, “Perpetual Pretext”, and “Manslaughter” is exceptionally good.

Some might think “female vocalist – another gimmick band” but nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, she is pretty damn good looking, but the woman is honest to Dio talented. Convincing black/death vocals (which if you didn’t know better, could mistake for a guy), exceptional and varied riffing and great lead work – no cutesy shit here – this is mean and nasty metal through and through.

All in all, I was taken aback somewhat by how good this is for a debut. It’s been awhile since I’ve heard a full on death thrash album done so convincingly, let alone for a first album. Dreaming Dead may not have reinvented the wheel here, but Within One feels pretty fresh and is all aces in delivery and execution. Don’t miss this one, it’s a keeper.