2005-11-13
My two favorite Flotsam And Jetsam albums are No Place For Disgrace, and Cautro, both represent different facets of the band, No Place is their thrash masterpiece, quite a simple aggressive album, but still one of the genre's all time classics, and Cautro is a mature, complex metal album, not easily identifiable as any specific metallic genre.
Dreams Of Death is, in my opinion, a combination of the best of what the band did in both those albums, it feels aggressive, dark, and yet mature and intelligent, it shows just how much talent the band has, but manages to deliver it in a more precise and coherent way then any of their last releases, and that makes it, in my book, their best album yet, and that's saying something.
First thing is Eric A.K's vocals, he was always one of the best, most expressive vocalists in the genre, and here he gives it his best, he moves from the clear, catchy chorus of Straight To Hell to an almost death-metal growl in Parasychotic with ease, his voice hasn’t changed much since the 80's, but the way he uses bears the wisdom of age that most younger vocalists just don’t have.
Straight To Hell is probably the band's catchiest tune on the album, and also it's first single, it has a truly heavy opening riff, and a catchy melody like in the chorus, it twists and turns a few times, but it's certainly classic Flotsam stuff.
Parasychotic is another heavy track, a bit less obvious than Straight, but still retains it's catchiness, Bleed, on the other hand, infuses some dark sounding clean guitars and combines a more etheric feel with the band's aggressiveness.
Another winner is Childhood Hero, it has a ballad quality and an emotional use of riffs, but it’s A.K's phenomenal delivery that makes this track so memorable.
Had I been forced to describe the band's album for those unfamiliar with their older stuff, I would have called it "the thinking man's thrash album", it has the thrash elements from their earlier albums, but it infuses it with the matures and complex emotional tones of later releases, its not an immediate favorite, it certainly takes some getting used to, but given time, it grows on you.
Alon Miasnikov
