Produced by Red Descending
Released: 2008
Where Dreams Come to Die is the debut album from Perth band Red Descending. Their overall style could be labelled "melodic death metal" I suppose but in essence they seem to be a group that is a little difficult to pigeonhole so conveniently. The album was mastered in Stockholm, a move that would appear somewhat unnecessary considering the quality of domestic mastering facilities these days, unless it was to provide some direct connection to Sweden that couldn't have been recognised in the music itself, and yes, the music has a very Swedish sound to it.
At first I thought Where Dreams Come to Die was going to be an album of either keys-heavy prog or symphonic power metal, because the most obvious aspect of Red Descending's music is the sheer predominence of the keyboards. Imagine if Dark Tranquillity buried the guitars way down in the mix so only Brändstrom and Stanne could be heard, then instead of just playing the melody, have the keyboards do all the main riffing also. The melodies totally overpower any real heaviness in Red Descending's music, resulting in a very symphonic and melodic approach like Gothenburg death metal with the death metal taken out except for the harsh, rather one-dimensional vocals. None of this would be of any consequence if Where Dreams Come to Die wasn't also rather bland and generic. Of the ten songs on this album, the only one that really reached out and grabbed me was "Valhalla", a speedy instrumental that sounded like DragonForce playing Viking metal. Otherwise, the rest of the tracks just sort of flowed by without much of an impact. There wasn't any bad songs but no real highlights either, which made the album seem to drag on for much longer than its 47 minute playing time. Overall, Where Dreams Come to Die suffers from a lack of diversity both in the songwriting and in Bernard Shaw's vocal delivery and is rather devoid of any real hooks.
I've always had a pretty high opinion of most metal from Western Australia and while this four piece group hasn't tarnish the state's reputation in that regard, Where Dreams Come to Die didn't really raise the bar either
Released: 2008
Where Dreams Come to Die is the debut album from Perth band Red Descending. Their overall style could be labelled "melodic death metal" I suppose but in essence they seem to be a group that is a little difficult to pigeonhole so conveniently. The album was mastered in Stockholm, a move that would appear somewhat unnecessary considering the quality of domestic mastering facilities these days, unless it was to provide some direct connection to Sweden that couldn't have been recognised in the music itself, and yes, the music has a very Swedish sound to it.
At first I thought Where Dreams Come to Die was going to be an album of either keys-heavy prog or symphonic power metal, because the most obvious aspect of Red Descending's music is the sheer predominence of the keyboards. Imagine if Dark Tranquillity buried the guitars way down in the mix so only Brändstrom and Stanne could be heard, then instead of just playing the melody, have the keyboards do all the main riffing also. The melodies totally overpower any real heaviness in Red Descending's music, resulting in a very symphonic and melodic approach like Gothenburg death metal with the death metal taken out except for the harsh, rather one-dimensional vocals. None of this would be of any consequence if Where Dreams Come to Die wasn't also rather bland and generic. Of the ten songs on this album, the only one that really reached out and grabbed me was "Valhalla", a speedy instrumental that sounded like DragonForce playing Viking metal. Otherwise, the rest of the tracks just sort of flowed by without much of an impact. There wasn't any bad songs but no real highlights either, which made the album seem to drag on for much longer than its 47 minute playing time. Overall, Where Dreams Come to Die suffers from a lack of diversity both in the songwriting and in Bernard Shaw's vocal delivery and is rather devoid of any real hooks.
I've always had a pretty high opinion of most metal from Western Australia and while this four piece group hasn't tarnish the state's reputation in that regard, Where Dreams Come to Die didn't really raise the bar either
- Building My Weakness
- Century
- The Grand Memory
- Slaughter Falls
- Descend
- Fragile Nation
- Deceived Again
- Departure
- Valhalla
- Landscape
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