Since their first album in 2002, Dream Evil has been known as the
purveyors of the cheesy 80's power metal. Album four, United, is certainly
no different in that regard. Throughout the album, the listener will
be wondering if they have not heard this done on every preceeding
album.
All of the things that one expects from Dream Evil are intact, apart
from Gus G leaving before the previous album The Book of Heavy Metal.
That said, United does nothing to really distinguish itself from any of
the other power metal releases, much less their own. The high vocals of
Niklas Isfeldt are reminiscent of Rob Halford, which almost seems to be
more of a curse than a blessing these days. The guitars are rather
standard and the rhythym section does nothing to change the formula set by
the band. It should be mentioned that Dream Evil has more brutal uses
for the word "evil" than I can count, as the song titles Blind Evil and
Evilution attest. Lyrically, the cheese factor is turned up
considerably, with a couple of rather sappy songs, lyrics-wise, in Falling and
Let Me Out. Everything else is just regular cheese expected of the power
metal scene. One highlight on the album is the title track, which is
actually the least cheesy of all the tracks and is a fairly good ballad.
Unfortunately, the rest of the album tries to outcheese itself with the
bonus track My Number One being so bad one will wonder why it was even
included. It is a horrible way to end an album, but given the
excessive humor factor, however inadvertent it may or may not be, it was almost
expected.
I am not going to lie and say I did not enjoy the album. However, if I
were to recommend to someone some power metal, Dream Evil would not be
anywhere near the top of the list. United continues the band's
tradition of cheese while nauseating the average metal fan at the same time.
A note to Dream Evil: experiment with your sound a little more and come
back when you have it all figured out.
