Dream Evil – In The Night

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A four year wait between studio albums is unusual for Dream Evil, double that of the longest previous gap in output, and while they haven’t exactly taken leaps and bounds from 2006’s United, they have used that time to good effect. Unfortunately they haven’t yet gotten away from their stock “Metal! Leather! Chains!” lyrics which can make picking one song from another very difficult and equally fruitless if you’re looking for something lyrically challenging. But what they do have going for them on In The Night is some of their heaviest and best riffs to date, and comfortably Niklas Isfeldt’s best vocal performance since joining the band, with Rob Halford screams abound (See The Light, for example). And that more or less characterises the album. The production (Fredrik Nordström) is flawless and every track is big, heavy, dumb metal – just the way they like it. Tongue-in-cheek The Ballad is obvious, Immortal and Kill, Burn, Be Evil are destined to be their new fist-pumping concert anthems, and The Unchosen One is a sister track to The Chosen Ones from their début album Dragonslayer; thematically very similar, same style of chorus, but a much better solo. In The Night is Dream Evil, pure and simple, just heavier. Isfeldt steals the show.

Written by Andy Lye
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