Label: Century Media

Genre: Heavy Metal

Release Date EU: May 26th, 2017

Line Up:

Ritchie Rainbow
Nick Night
Pete Pain
Pat Power
Mark U Black

Tracklist:

Dream Evil
Antidote
Sin City
Creature Of The Night
Hellride
Six Hundred And 66
How To Start A War
The Murdered Mind
Too Loud
44 Riders
Broken Wings
We Are Forever

The album is named “SIX” and guess what, it’s Dream Evils’ sixth record. Actually, the album title could have been ‘seven’ as well, thinking about the seven long years of waiting between the last record and the new strike of Fredrik Nordström and band.

“In the Night” was the last record that saw the light of day, followed by a silence that surrounded the Swedish metal outfit. “SIX” marks the return of the band and fortunately the line-up stayed pretty much the same over this long period of time. One change though. Mark Black took over the second guitar in 2013 and the new album is the first one he could contribute to.

“SIX” features twelve songs in the typical Dream Evil fashion. Powerful metal anthems like the opener, “Too Loud” and “Broken Wings” stand right in line with pounding metal hymns of which “Six Hundred and 66” is one of. Each of these tracks reflects pure and powerful heavy metal that reminds of Judas Priest and Primal Fear. It’s not bad to have this kind of cross-references and Dream Evil is also far away of copying. But what the quintet offers on “SIX” doesn’t bring a lot of new to the table either. It feels like we have heard this kind of songs already several time.

Anyhow, there are some numbers that caught my attention. One of them is the melodic rocking “Sin City” with its catchy chorus and also the moderate paced “Dream Evil” belongs to my favorites on this record. Again, none of the tunes is a bad one. It’s just that the final dot on the ‘I’ is missing here and there – the final punch that lifts the songs from good to excellent.

What is excellent though is the production of “SIX”. Nordström did again a good job, giving the album a dynamic and powerful sound that helps each of the tracks to unveil the best possible.

To conclude: “SIX” is a good power metal album that comes with some highlights and some good songs. Dream Evil fans will love the album and that’s what counts.

Reviewer: Markus Wiedenmann