The Smashing Skull Sessions

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Dream Unending - Song Of Salvation

Thursday, December 15th, 2022 at 3:00 AM #doommetal #doom #shoegaze #rock #review #psychedelic #post-rock #post-metal #post rock #podcast #musicreviews #musicreview #music #experimental #blackmetal #blackgaze #alternativemetal

Expect an awesome balance between slow-paced beautiful progressive dreamy doom passages and bursting death grunts of heaviness. The composing and the musicianship from Derrick Vella and Justin De Tore are of the hook again. What a level they reach in their writing and execution

Only one year ago Dream Unending released their debut album Tide Turns Eternal and they made quite an impression with that one. It was high-quality doom/death metal with a predilection for old Paradise Lost and Anathema (Peaceville era) with brilliant progressive elements in the arangements and soloing. The band baptised their sound as dream-doom, and a new album Song of Salvation, again released through the 20 Buck Spin label, certainly continues on that basis, but has developed even further, resulting in a top five yearlist album for me.

The duration of both Song of Salvation and its predecessor Tide Turns Eternal is around 45 minutes, with the difference that the new album only consists of five songs instead of seven. That’s because the album opens with the title-track Songs of Salvation, a lengthy beast of 14 minutes, with the album closing with Ecstatic Rain, another impressive banger of 16 minutes. Those two songs alone are already enough reason to check and instantly buy this record. Expect an awesome balance between slow-paced beautiful progressive dreamy doom passages and bursting death grunts of heaviness. The composing and the musicianship from Derrick Vella and Justin De Tore are of the hook again. What a level they reach in their writing and execution.

Song of Salvation contains progressive elements by adding diverse (clean and melancholic, male and female) guest vocals, a trumpet, a spoken-word sample and piano/ synth parts which can also be heard on the relatively shorter songs Secret Grief, Murmur of Voices and Unrequited. And just like last year I’m totally in awe again with the brilliant long-stretched guitar solos that make me think of a marvelous Satriani/Gilmour/Mackintosh-ish combination. With a funeral-doom grunt thundering over them, you must be both impatient and curious to go and check this out by now, aren’t you?

The production is flawless and the cover painting by Benjamin A. Vierling is just stunning. All these ingredients together make this album such an interesting and worthy recipient to any end of year list. Still thinking of a flat 30cm by 30cm present for under that green decorated tree of yours? I just did you a no-brainer suggestion. You’re welcome. Enjoy!