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| Story: Ralph Greco, Jr.
Heavy metal will never die. But every now and then, it needs a fresh injection of passion, purity, and pomp, just in case. Returning with a new album after seven years of studio silence, DREAM EVIL are obviously the right men for the job. They are Metal Gods, and they will reign supreme. Formed at the tail-end of the ‘90s by esteemed metal producer Fredrik Nordström and six-string ingenue Gus G. (FIREWIND/OZZY OSBOURNE), DREAM EVIL smashed their way into the power metal boom of the early 21st century. Armed with songs that celebrated the greats of the genre while adding a healthy dose of contemporary electricity, they released their debut album Dragonslayer in 2002 and became an instant hit with fans of thunderous, melodic metal. Refusing to sit around and wait for creativity to happen, DREAM EVIL put their noses to the grindstone, delivering two more studio albums – Evilized (2003) and the larger-than-life The Book Of Heavy Metal (2004) – which cemented the band’s reputation as one of modern heavy metal’s most explosive and classic-sounding bands. Led by the powerhouse vocals of Niklas Isfeldt, they survived the departure of Gus G. in 2004, made a fourth album – the majestic United (2006) – and continued to thrill their diehard fan base with glorious anthems and overblown, celebratory live shows, both as support to the likes of SAXON and HAMMERFALL, and as a potent and vital headlining act in their own right. Although less prolific over the following years, DREAM EVIL have remained a reliable benchmark for doing this heavy metal thing properly. Both 2010’s In The Night and its long-awaited follow-up SIX (2017) kept the flame blazing, but the band has been oddly quiet over the last few years, occasional tours aside. The good news is that DREAM EVIL are back, and more metal than ever. Pieced together over the last few years, the new album Metal Gods is a comeback of epic, none-more-metal proportions. “We didn’t really disappear; we have just been lazy!” laughs Nordström. “We were like, ‘We have to do an album!’ That had been the plan for a long time. It’s been a long time. Mainly because we were all busy, to be honest. We have so many children between us in the band, and it’s hard to find time to get stuff together. We started work on a new album several years ago. We just wanted to make a better album than the previous one. Everybody in the band felt the same. It was simple, really. We just tried to make Metal Gods the best DREAM EVIL album yet!” While some bands try to understate their devotion to heavy metal, DREAM EVIL remain passionate advocates for the entire genre. Metal Gods is exactly the kind of triumphant, balls-out metal record that the world needs right now. Bulging with exhilarating anthems and moments of musical bravado, the band’s seventh studio record sounds like a million dollars and delivers the goods with a proud flourish. From the fiendishly catchy likes of “Metal Gods” , “The Tyrant Dies At Dawn”, and “Fight In The Night” to darker, more dramatic tunes like “Chosen Force” and album closer “Y.A.N.A.”, Metal Gods is close in spirit to the euphoric metal worship of Dragonslayer and Evilized, but with sharper songwriting and a huge sound that virtually leaps from the speakers. Still more metal than just about everybody else, DREAM EVIL are a band on fire, and Metal Gods is a colossal inferno of leather, studs, and steel. “We always try to have some variation on the albums,” says Nordström. “We write the songs that we write. I’m really happy about this one, and we didn’t feel that with the previous album, for various reasons. This time, it felt like it would be fun again. This album has a theme of fighting. Dragonslayer was about dragons, and most of the other albums have been about metal, but this one is about fighting, and every song is about a battle of some kind, for some reason! Maybe because our bass player has been writing a lot of the lyrics, and he’s a big IRON MAIDEN fan, and they’ve written a lot of songs about the same thing.” Created by the enduring line-up of Isfeldt, Nordström, bassist Peter Stålfors, and lead guitarist Markus Fristedt, plus latest recruit, drummer Sören Fardvik, Metal Gods represents a complete reset and a return to active service for the Swedish legends. Brimming with energy and almost creaking under the weight of its many magnificent melodies and riffs, it promises to reintroduce DREAM EVIL to the world and propel them back to the forefront of the heavy metal scene where they belong. Nordström is eager to point out that DREAM EVIL was not conceived as a full-time band and that their intermittent efforts have often been difficult to achieve, not least due to his own work as one of metal’s best-regarded studio gurus. In contrast, Metal Gods sounds like an album made by musicians on a mission, driven by honest enthusiasm and a profound love for the heavy metal ethos. Looking back, Nordström notes that DREAM EVIL haven’t been as productive as they would have liked over the last two decades, but that Metal Gods is the big, ballsy antidote: an album made by true friends, aimed squarely at the metal faithful. “We did three albums in 2002, 2003, and 2004, and then we’ve been the laziest band on the moon since then,” Nordström admits. “But the last ten years have actually been pretty good. The band has never gone backwards money-wise, so we can go on tour, pay for everything and have some money left over. But it’s still just a hobby! A band is like a fucking marriage, with four other guys that you don’t have sex with. Every time we see each other now it’s always fun and we have a good time together, but if we had been full-time musicians, we would probably hate each other by now! [laughs]” As they return with a new album and a fresh perspective, DREAM EVIL are newly committed to taking Metal Gods to the masses as soon as possible. Guaranteed to have audiences banging their heads and screaming themselves hoarse, the new songs will fit perfectly with the highlights of the band’s catalogue to date, as Nordström and his comrades hit the road later in 2024, with their most extravagant stage show to date. When the world needs heavy metal, DREAM EVIL delivers it. It’s that simple. “I think we’ll do Australia and Japan, and maybe some European dates. We’ve never played in France or Italy, so maybe it’s time to do that too. It feels different this time, for sure. We have set up a lot of rehearsal dates, which we’ve never done before, so yeah, we’re more ambitious now, absolutely. We won’t necessarily be going out and playing our asses off for months at a time, but when we do play, we want it to be as great as possible. It’s the friendship that we have in the band that makes it special. Everybody has different opinions, but we don’t care about that. We’re here for the music. We’re here for the metal!” Line-Up:
Discography:
DREAM EVIL online:
Ralph Greco, Jr. is the devilishly clever nom de plume of professional writer/musician Ralph Greco who lives in the wilds of suburban New Jersey. He is also a podcast co-host, but as everyone has a podcast these days, this fact is of very little consequence. Ralph can be reached by writing ralphiedawriter@gmail.com 
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