Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Jacobs Dream
Label: 57 Records
Release date: 03.07.2017
Running time: 59:03
Rating: 4/5
It’s worth writing a few more lines about the new album from American heavy metal heroes Jacobs Dream, titled »Sea of Destiny«. It’s the band’s sixth studio album overall. They hail from Columbus, Ohio, and this is their first in eight long years, since its predecessor »Dominion of Darkness« (2009).
The lineup has stayed unchanged since the third album »Drama Of the Ages« (2005), but with one important difference. Original singer David Taylor is back behind the mic for the new record. He sang on the band’s first two albums, »Jacobs Dream« (2000) and »Theater of War« (2001).
»Sea of Destiny« is essentially a recap of the band’s old days, but with a major upgrade in production. And you have to keep in mind the eight-year gap, during which the new ideas were polished down to the last detail. For the almost full hour of new material on the record, the band picked the best of the best.
Jacobs Dream are back with a new album, and they’re doing it in style. It’s an excellent piece of work that draws its inspiration from the old school of 1980s American speed metal. In fact, Jacobs Dream are a link to the golden era of classic heavy metal, the kind that was being brewed on American soil thirty years ago. In the guitar phrases you can find quite a few parallels to those times, reminiscent of the early steps of Fates Warning, Vicious Rumors, Savatage, Warrior, even the first Queensryche. But Jacobs Dream, who formed in the mid-nineties, breathed a generous dose of epic bombast and theatrical pomp into all of it, much like their contemporaries Jag Panzer, and Cage too.
The album grabs your full attention instantly, right from the opener Where Vultures Gather. That track has everything described in the previous paragraph. A signature riff, an epic intro, a polished instrumental middle section with lightning-fast, razor-sharp guitar solos, and the superb, commandingly authoritative singing of David Taylor, who hasn’t lost a speck of his former vocal charisma over all these years and handles even the most demanding (extremely high) vocal ranges with effortless ease. The guitar riffs are adorned with twin guitar harmonies in thirds, and they’re a major co-creator of the dramatic, highly vibrant mood that runs through this dark, occult-tinged studio album.
Musically it’s a richly varied piece of work. The band has really honed the new album down to the finest detail, and each track works like a complete story, with its own distinct charisma of artistic expression. The whole album is also caught in a distinctly dark, epic mood, with no shortage of melancholy, agony, rage and pain, but also an awareness of the need to defy and endure, even when the end is near. Fantasy themes, in other words, and the hero faces (almost by rule) a tragic end.
So. »Sea Of Destiny« is an album that will appeal to all fans of old-school American metal. No kitsch, no frills. Even though we’re talking about epic elements, they’re woven into a dark atmosphere throughout, which is why I’d rather not use the term power metal here. It tends to let a sugary moment or two sneak in, and »Sea Of Destiny« stubbornly, and very effectively, rejects those at every turn (thankfully). This is an album whose high-dynamic flow of events keeps the listener on edge, from the first second to the last, until the urge hits you again to hit »play again« on your home CD player.
Jacobs Dream – Where Vultures Gather (official audio):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyLXcX__Nr4
Lineup
David Taylor – vocals
Jon Noble – guitar
John Berry – guitar
James Evans – guitar
Gary Holtzman – drums
Track list
01. Where Vultures Gather
02. Cry the Viking
03. Independence
04. Sea of Destiny
05. Echoes of Birmingham
06. Into the Night
07. Combustion
08. Lady of Sorrows
09. Down
10. Embers of Torment
11. Crucible
12. Truth
