Journey into Mystery

It would be tempting to write Dream Death off as a Celtic Frost worship band and yet, I I’m convinced that Dream Death have more personality than that some people give them credit for. Journey into Mystery marks the start of this band and while it owes more to Celtic Frost than its successors would, there’s more than meets the eye.

There’s no doubt that many of Dream Death’s riffs sounds like a throwback to a time in which Tom Warrior wrote some of the heaviest riffs on the planet, but I never got the idea that this band wanted to be the next Celtic Frost. Thematically and vividly, I’m rather reminiscent of daily struggles and the crap that one has to go through than the epic themes than Tom Warrior touched upon. Brian Lawrence couldn’t sound further from a Tom Warrior-esque barker, as he’s rather inspired by Cronos; it’s an authentic voice that’s covered with distortion and is fueled by hatred and disgust. Another thing to keep in mind is that Dream Death remains metallic to the core; there are no female vocals or French horns to turn their craft into a musical festival of any sorts.

With all this said, it’s best to think of Dream Death as a band that are heavily inspired by Celtic Frost among other things. The bludgeoning Iommi-esque grooves of ‘The Elder Race’ are quite something to behold and prove that Dream Death are one hell of a heavy band, but there are more surprises lurking around the corner. The band borrows heavily from thrash at times; clearly evident once you’ll stumble upon the thrilling chase of ‘Hear My Screams’ and the contrastive ‘Dream Death’, which is a snarling thrasher that occasionally morphs into a nightmare-driven piece of sludge and doom. The band even hints towards an oppressive future with the semi-doom/death take of ‘Sealed in Blood’. With its apocalyptic verses and mechanical riff-chops, it almost foreshadows the distorted direction of Sorrow; that is, until yet another familiar Warrior-esque motif presents itself. It’s something I clearly don’t mind and besides, Celtic Frost weren’t exactly too hot circa 1987... so more power to Dream Death!

Most of these cuts sound clearly convincing, but I'll admit that there a few tracks scattered around that I could have done without. ‘Back from the Dead’ makes a proper introduction from a stylistic point of view, yet this it lacks some of the fire in the guitar department; making it more of a so-so introduction than anything else and that’s obviously a disadvantage. ‘Divine in Agony’ sound pretty unhinged in the vocal department, yet it’s track that lacks those extremely memorable guitar chops that are present on other cuts, even if it’s stylistically up there with the doom crush of ‘The Elder Race’. Lastly, I’m not too enthusiastic about ‘Black Edifice’. It’s clearly got some juggernaut riffs in store, but it doesn’t reveal its greatness until it reaches the two minute mark.

By no means am I suggesting that Journey into Mystery a flawless medium of any sorts, but with its driving riffs and exciting songs, it’s certainly recommended to fans of… well, practically anything heavy. There’s nothing else to be said – check it out already; just don’t be surprised if you hurt your neck in the process!

This review was originally written for antichristmagazine.com

Dream Death was one of the more interesting cult bands in the late 80s metal scene. Having had a short initial run, the band members eventually found greener pastures in Penance but have also enjoyed their status with a recent reunion. While 2013 would see the release of their sophomore album Somnium Excessum, this 1987 effort is the only full-length from their prime and has proved to be an influential though obscure listen.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Dream Death didn’t really fit into a particular scene in their early days. Their style of doom was more unhinged than Saint Vitus or Pentagram but wasn’t as extreme as the sludge and death/doom that they would help inspire. Instead, they played an odd fusion of doom and thrash metal with Celtic Frost, Slayer, Venom, and the obligatory Black Sabbath as influences.

These cues can be heard in the riffs and muddy production job, but the vocals are where it stands out the most. Clearly inspired by Tom G Warrior with some Tom Araya inflections here and there, guitarist/vocalist Brian Lawrence has a harsh bark with an almost spoken word approach. It can run the risk of sounding bland but it definitely fits the filthy atmosphere in a way that a standard death grunt just couldn’t.

The songwriting is also diverse and covers the doom to thrash spectrum, oftentimes in the same song. The opening “Back From The Dead” and “Dream Death” show more thrash, “The Elder Race” and “Sealed In Blood” offer the most doom, and other like “Bitterness & Hatred” and “Divine In Agony” are a little harder to predict. The results are a mixed bag as four songs are pretty much perfect and the others range from great to somewhat directionless.

A couple lesser songs bring it down a notch, but Journey Into Mystery should be seen as a classic doom release. While there are more influential efforts from this period, its uniqueness makes it worth checking out and it definitely grows on you with repeated listens. And since the band has put out a solid comeback, I suppose we can finally stop wondering what could’ve been.

Current Highlights:
“Back From The Dead”
“The Elder Race”
“Sealed In Blood”
“Dream Death”

Originally published at http://psychicshorts.blogspot.com

If you were searching for the actual roots of the entire doom/death genre, going farther and farther back, tracing whatever strange elements that we can reduce the genre to along the lines of both doom and death metal, trying to find the exact moment where these two lineages intersected, for a time, and gave birth to a new style of music that was equally inspired by both styles yet which wasn't directly evocative of either, I think that the line would hesitate for a second right around this album before climbing even further back into the progenitors of American doom: St. Vitus, The Obsessed, etc. It just depends on which subgenre you think was more influential in shaping the 'true' doom/death tradition: death or doom metal. Because this album came out in 1987, right at the same time that some of the more vicious strains of thrash and speed metal were metamorphosing into what would later become death - meaning Mantas, Sacrifice, Death, Slayer and Possessed - it becomes a little unclear... who were Dream Death really influenced by? What were they trying to accomplish? Were they taking the Candlemass/Obsessed formula into new territories, and naturally borrowed from the nascent death metal scene, or was their sound completely original - itself lending influence to the death bands that came afterwards? It is difficult to tell now... but in any case, this album is original in that it does, for a brief half-hour or so, bleed out the sound of both doom and what would later become death: I hesitate only in calling it 'death metal' because of its traditional song structures, its 'rock' singing vocals, and the simplistic drumming. The guitar sound (oh so heavy) and the lyrics (Lovecraft, zombies, sorcery and gore - sound familiar?) point directly to death metal - as such, as I have been trying to say, it's like a snapshot of a genre frozen in time, exactly congruous with all the elements of the much-copied style would come together on 'Scream Bloody Gore'. So, these four Pennsylvania (someone should write a history of that state's influence on the national scene) musicians, working in a relatively isolated environment, as they must have been, although still hazily cognizant of what was going on in the world at large, arrived at a particular style more through trial and error than anything else - a style that seemed to reflect, in their microcosm, what was happening in the larger metal scene: a time of transition, when traditional music was giving way under the impetus of new sounds - a new emphasis on horror, violence, and the wholesale turning away from what had come before... a rebellion, in short.

'Journey into Mystery', as I hinted at above, is mainly important to me because of its guitar sound: one can truly trace the entire history of death metal through the evolution of guitar distortion, and backtracking, place a band in the development of this genre based only by listening to the way the six-strings sound... I can't think of many other types or categories of music where the way the instruments sound, their particular production, aura, or feel, determines so much in the ability of the musicians to communicate emotion. Interesting, isn't it? But in any case, this album features a monstrously heavy, bludgeoning, crushing, vitriolic guitar tone - one that seems to give the lie to the 'traditional' song structures it constructs (in a nihilistic fashion it tears down what it is constantly referencing) - which places this firmly in the camp of those bands who were searching for something new in the metal scene at the end of the '80s. On this album the hackneyed Sabbathisms of Iommi's children are warped and twisted into something new, blended together with pounding, snapping rhythms and decidely anti-doom tempos or tremelo riffing. Melodies that are seemingly inspired by the British black four's morose effusions are perverted, turned inside-out, drenched in acid, reconstructed or torn apart. Related, coincidentally, very close to what Necrophagia were doing with their guitars on their first album, and taking a large, healthy dose of influence from Candlemass, this sound only had to be taken a little further in order to make all the blasphemy and mutant otherworldliness of 'Scream Bloody Gore' or 'Severed Survival' possible...

As I was saying above, because this band blended traditional doom (derived, ultimately from Sabbath and Trouble) with stylistic hints of what would later become death metal, it wouldn't be that far off the mark to actually claim they were one of the first bands who can lay claim to beginning the entire doom/death subgenre... I know that splitting hairs at this level is meaningless, and that such categories do not really mean much when it comes to just enjoying the music, but I am trying to give credit where it's due... because my interest in metal has always been allied with a particular (some would say misguided) historical instinct, trying to archive or concretely record all these nefarious/obscure webs of influence and counter-influence in the progression of the various genres, I have found that my appreciation of music such as this can only be increased by an understanding of its derivation...this is a matter for my mental records, and once filed away, it usually does not interfere with the other ways in which I listen to the music.

But, in any case, this frighteningly rare album (I found it in a bargain bin for a dollar, and I can't believe my luck) is a necessary item for the completist, or those who are distinctly obsessed, as I am, with the history of the music they are involved in... this band later became Penance, the traditionally underrated doom stalwarts of the US scene, and Mike, the drummer on this, later appeared with Cathedral... but I don't care about what they did later, as I think it is inconsequential... if only because they fell back into conservatively repeating the music of bands that had come before them. For a time, with this album, Dream Death was poised on the very edge of a transition state, where old paradigms were fading away and being replaced with new sounds, new ideas, new energy... if they could have kept going forward, who knows what would have happened?

UA

Erebus Magazine
http://erebuszine.blogspot.com

Doom thrash is kind of an oxymoron. Well not kind of, it is an oxymoron; like someone making racist rap. For someone who has never heard Dream Death before this could be very confusing, but at the same time it is very intriguing. How the hell do you play doom thrash!? These gnarly bastards figured it out! They are from Pittsburgh, PA but honestly if you think about it they may have gone much much further if they had relocated to Florida. Seeing as this came out in 1987, these guys and Obituary would have gotten along all too well!! We can all dream right? Pun intended.

But alas! My first thought when someone first mentioned doom thrash was, how the hell are they going to be able to transition from thrash to doom? It's like they will start on the doom and then and then move to what, in thrash, would be a down tempo moshing riff, then into a mid tempo kind of thing. Think Obituary's Cause of Death; that should paint a pretty good picture. Don't think this is a clear rip off of Obituary though. It's easy to Dream Death to them but the riffs are very different. I notice Dream Death's riffage doesn't follow a stand key signature or a half whole tone pattern what so ever. They just break all kinds of rules! The power chords just move all over the place. A very difficult concept to describe.

Another thing this band would just be nothing without is the mastermind behind the drum kit! If there were any different beats behind those riffs, it's hard to picture them working together. Sometimes the guitar riffs don't exactly transition, it is literally the drummer and the vocalist letting you know when things are about to change. This doesn't happen all the time, but maybe instead of a transition, sometimes it is just a mini riff thing they do to help it flow smoothly. Like in the riff right before the chorus at 1:33 of the first song, "Back from the Dead". The vocals are a little cheesy on this album too. It really does fit the music oddly enough. You could call it one of those, "So cheesy it's good" cliches. His vocals sound a little more low pitched than Tom Araya's, and more of a growl death metal, but still thrash.

This is totally worth checking out. You don't need to be a fan of doom to get into this, that is the beautiful thing about it! This is honestly something to listen too if you have any kind of writers block and need to exercise your brain with something interesting. The only thing that keeps this from being in the 90s is that the songs do get repetitive. It doesn't kill the album by any means, (if it did I wouldn't review it) because going back to the, its so cheesy its good thing, the whole repetitive thing actually works for these guys! This is some very well written stuff!

Favorite Tracks: Back from the Dead, Black Edifice, Dream Death

When I first heard this I was all "woah bro, that's some crushing and original death/doom type stuff", but then a few months later I heard Morbid Tales (incidentally, a rad album) and ohhhhh, it clicked that there's nothing really original about this at all. Not that this is a bad thing as it's still pretty rad Celtic Frost worship, but that's what this is, not really doom/death or anything; although really you'd have a hard time arguing with someone as to why it isn't. Nothing like getting anal with genres, right.

So, as befits a Celtic Frost clone there's a lot of anti-catchy, anti-melodic riffs that really shouldn't work well but do, and do brilliantly, tempo changes a plenty, and a not technically skilled but still very vicious vocalist who does his thing. As with CF the band is more than the sum of its' parts; the way the vocalist locks in with the nasty, rude guitar riffing and the simple but effective drumming works real well; the whole thing just crushes and crushes and crushes. No mellow parts, no moments of respite, just straight out doomy and sorta thrashy crush.

You know the general mainstream assumption that "metal is just noisy guitars and someone screaming, anyone can do it!!" (or however it's paraphrased in your part of the world)? Well, here it pretty much applies, and it's wonderful to behold. There's a lot of different riffs transistions that shouldn't really make sense, the riffs would make a music theory teacher weep, the vocalist can't really do much but shout in an angry manner, so on and so forth. Playing Slayer out of your car at a loud volume will get the occaisonal moron going "YEEEAH" as they drive past, playing this would just get a lot of confused and angry looks. Really, this is as metal as you can get; no point checking this out if you're a Wolves in the Throne Room fan.

There's not really any total stand out moments (I am partial to the riff in the middle of "Hear My Screams", but it's not life-transforming or anything), no riffs that tower above the others, so while I can't really fault this record, I don't think it deserves to be praised to the skies, either. Certainly a decent record for anyone who wants their head kicked in with some big, crude and nasty guitar riffs. Oh, and the band name is awesome.

Long considered one of the underground classics of doom metal, this Pennsylvania band’s debut and only album is certainly a weighty and genuinely sinister affair. While not really belonging to the Sabbath school of doom, Dream Death were along with Medieval, Post Mortem and Blood Farmers, part of a school of thought that did not exclude punk snot and venom from the execution of the style. This basically means they have more deliberately rough edges than many in the genre, but also carry an organic feel that rounds out this record greatly. It’s a bit disconcerting at first how some of these songs shift passages one to the other within their frameworks, but after a short while the flow of “Back From The Dead” and “Divine In Agony become apparent. “Hear My Screams” dives in with a chugging pace and wonderfully malevolent (though hardly death metal) vocals from guitarist Brian Lawrence, also featuring a nice drum performance from Mike Smail. And man, listen to the distortion oozing from the guitars on “The Elder Race,” a slow and crawling number with visions of evil monks and Satanic rites dancing in it’s head. This record, despite the fact that far more mature and professional material would come from it’s some of it’s creators in their future guise as Penance, retains a unique aura and one singular to underground US metal of this era. Thus like Cirith Ungol and Brocas Helm, Dream Death are true cult cave dwellers in the shadows of metal’s mainstream presence, too obscure even for many fans who consider their tastes to be subterranean in it’s guise.

Dream Death, who? Dream Death! Unfortunately this band remains largely an unknown entity. The 80's produced many bands who came and went back then, however, are (at least) somewhat revered today as we look back on that period with envy. I picked up "Journey Into Mystery" after seeing it in the new releases Metal category at the godly Slipped Disc Records. I'm glad I did. I bought the cd off of amazon.com. Fortunately this is one obscure 80's gem that isn't too hard to find as it was included in a run of re-releases by New Renaisance Records.
Dream Death were considered a death metal band back in 1987, however, listening with revisionist ears they are more of a death-doom hybrid. I find them to be the 80's version of Obituary. The heavy mid-paced, sludgy guitars-had to have been an influence on the Tardy boys. Of course the vocals are completely different. They are more in a spoken word kind of gruff/screechy mixture. Think Necrophagia's "Season of the Dead" (another gem, BTW).
'Back from the dead' is your typical Dream Death song, heavy, mid tempo with a shouted chorus. Overall all the songs are solid. If you are a lover of 80's underground metal this album could be just what the doctor ordered. For fans of Slaughter-"Strappado", Necrophagia-"Season of the Dead" and Razor-"Evil Invaders".

“Welcome to my funeral my family and my friends. I hope you’ve enjoyed the living me because the dead one never ends…"

Dream Death’s first record appearance, I believe, was the Speed Metal Hell Vol. 3 compilation from New Renaissance with “Method to Madness”, one of their livelier, rapid tunes that unfortunately was so underproduced it sounded as though it were recorded through a wet sock. The song, now dubbed “Hear My Screams”, would be resurrected for Journey Into Mystery, their sole lp (at this time).

Thankfully sporting a better production (difficult to get worse), Journey... is perched primarily in the doom realm without venturing into the painfully-elongated-song territory where bands like Disembowelment and Esoteric dwell. The Pennsylvania band’s mostly lethargic sound may sound dated now, but with acts such as Pentagram, Trouble, St. Vitus, and to a diverse extent, Celtic Frost already plodding along, then in light of the doom uprising of the early ‘90s with Anathema and My Dying Bride, DD were probably right on target time-wise with their sound. Obviously, DD’s churning riffs are a prime component, and the bursts of mid-paced speed that erupt now and then don’t hurt their direction, but more of a draw (for me, anyway) is the masculine and hefty vox of Brian Lawrence; a commanding set of pipes easily distinguishable even on early Penance releases.

“Back From The Dead”, one of their quicker and best numbers, plows forward with salient rhythms that coalesce into a cool dual velocity chorus, meanwhile “The Elder Race” is drenched in slow, deliberate heaviness that hardly switches a gear. As a follow up, “Bitterness and Hatred” possesses a gait that rides the center lane compared to its precursors, bounding in and out of either dominion for a memorable third track. Closing side one is “Black Edifice”, an ominously touched brute that begins to expound on Lawrence’s building vocal vehemence.

The outstanding “Divine in Agony” unfurls possibly over a half dozen initiated rhythms in its lifespan, complete with timing and structural shifts that keep the vocals on panting alert. Footnote this as a top track. As in the original, “Hear My Screams” (a.k.a. “Method to Madness”) reaches its zenith with the mounting chorus, meanwhile a lead quilt lays on much of “Sealed in Blood”, slow-stepped and lurching as momentum gasps for air through small spaces in the weave. The final song, “Dream Death”, is perhaps the least interesting song featured, mainly due to its slapdash chorus weighing down the rest of the track like the last guy dangling on the end of the rope full of mountain climbers.

Okay, while Dream Death didn’t exactly have people mowing down pedestrians on their way to the record store, there is a surprising amount of people who not only have heard of this four-piece, but either already own this disk, are currently in search of it, or just heard it for the first time and asked the fateful words “dude, did this come out on cd?” That answer is yes, and it is worth the extra buck or two you may pay for it.

"...come to me, sweet child. Feel my touch. Taste my blood..."