Artist: Dreamtide
Label: AOR Heaven Records
Release: 2008
Rating: 0.5/5
“Dream And Deliver” is the third studio album from German outfit Dreamtide. Before it, the guys put out their studio debut in 2001, titled “Here Comes The Flood”, followed in 2003 by “Dreams For The Daring”. After five years of radio silence, the Dreamtide lineup hasn’t changed much at all. It’s still guitarist Helge Engelke, drummer CC Behrens, keyboardist Torsten Lüderwaldt and singer Olaf Senkbeil, with the new guy being the seasoned Francis Buchholz (who also played with Scorpions), who replaced Ole Hempelmann (Thunderhead) in 2007. Engelke, Behrens and Lüderwaldt might ring a bell, since they play together in German hard rockers Fair Warning. Bucholz and Senkbeil are also known from the band of yet another former Scorpions member, guitarist Uli Jon Roth.
Experience, deep know-how and respectable reputations aside, I have to say it straight: my ears haven’t heard a hard rock album this annoying in a long time. The guys obviously want to deliver their own sound, a recognizable sound, a recognizable style. The basic template is melodic hard rock. And yet you really won’t find any consistency on this record. One of the main culprits is Senkbeil’s shrill, unbelievably whiny vocal, which saws at your ears with its sine-wave curves, along with vocal melodies that are way too complicated, especially in the choruses, which in hard rock always need as little fussing as possible. The band also has zero feel for vocal harmonies to wrap around the lead vocal. On that front, too, the album is neutered when it comes to atmosphere. Then there are the repeated “weird” attempts at melody-writing that just don’t fit together, and come off downright naive in their hunt for a signature sound. The keyboards add to that naive feel, trying to be progressive at the transitions, and so do the constant fast-played school-scale runs between sections that shred the cohesion and wreck the flow of the songs.
The guys could have fixed things right from the start by seriously trimming the album and releasing it with nine or ten songs at most. That alone would have bought them a lot more tightness. But clearly they have plenty of confidence in the quality of their material. Another problem is the very coarse, raw production, which is typical of German bands, admittedly. A few songs lean heavily toward pop rock, partly thanks to semi-acoustic riffs, and yet the production is so hard that the whole thing ends up sounding like rock n’ roll for beggars. The clumsily built English lyrics add their bit to the album’s “hilarity” too, killing the flow the songs need, and flow is essential in melodic hard rock. You get the feeling this album was made more for fun than for real. You won’t miss it. It’s a very boring, unoriginal, expressionless album with worn-out, chewed-over ideas.
Lineup
Olaf Senkbeil – vocals
Helge Engelke – guitar
Thorsten Lüderwaldt – keyboards
Francis Buchholz – bass
CC Behrens – drums
Tracklist
1.A Fools Crusade
2.I Don’t Want To Wait
3.Same Star
4.Your Beat
5.Dancing When The Night Falls
6.King Of Scum
7. Download A Dream
8.Tell Me How It Feels
9.Stronger
10.To Everybody
11.Keep From Falling
12.The Vow
13. Help Me
14. Download A Dream Reprise
Album length: 69.58
