Artwork by Matthew Jaffe
On the 19th of November, underground metal label 20 Buck Spin is releasing the debut album 'Tide Turns Eternal' by Dream Unending, a project forged by guitarist/bassist Derrick Vella and drummer/vocalist Justin Detore. While these gentlemen play in old school death metal bands (Tomb Mold, Outer Heaven, Unnumerable Forms), Dream Unending is not a death metal band. They play doomgaze- or dreamdoom metal..... Whatever label you want to put on it, let me tell you, this is the most surprising metal record you'll ever hear this year.
Take the shimmering guitars of Cocteau Twins, combine them with old Anathema during their doom metal days, and you have an idea of what Dream Unending sounds like. Dreamy, shoegazey, doomey. But mainly, it's Derricks experimentation with sound that gives this record this surreal, ambient feeling. The clean echoing guitars bring a melancholic elegance while Derrick’s fretless basswork makes everything sound jazzy and fluid.
Justin Detore’s drum work, murky grunt are the counterweight, their function is to distort the nice dream into a more nightmarish one, and it's those two worlds that merge and become a portal to unknown macrocosms. Amazing songs like the first single In Cipher I Weep, the track Dream Unending, the title track Tide Turns Eternal, are all gateways to these alternative universes. With guest appearances by the father of Derrick who plays the organ on In Cipher I Weep, audiobook narrator and Star Trek actor Richard Poe and vocalist McKenna Rae who closes this record with her angelic whispers, it all comes together in this crystal ball that shows past, present and future but above all, the cosmos within us.
Dream Unending's Tide Turns Eternal is an exercise in nostalgic escapism. Their approach to sound, and their creativity are unreal, which makes this album very special. It's a disappointment when the record is over after 45 minutes. It's like you've finished leaping into this vastly different quantum realms and you're now back in the boring world where you were born and raised.
Tracklist:
Entrance
Adorned In Lies
In Cipher I Weep
The Needful
Dream Unending
Forgotten Farewell
Tide Turns Eternal
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