Hold On to the Dream

This album is epically awesome. It’s the definition of “hidden gem” if I know what that means. Almost everybody who bothers to learn who Demon are only bother with the first two albums, and then they assume that they mellowed out. And that’s partially true; they did get a lot lighter throughout most of the 80’s, although the quality was still high, but on this first 90’s Demon release they explode into some face-melting heavy metal. We’re talking about W.A.S.P.’s “The Headless Children” type of heavy where everything sounds larger than life and incredibly fervent. That’s the closest album I can compare this to, and for those of you who’ve heard it, you know that’s a good thing.

The album opens with “No More Hell On Earth,” a masterpiece of a song about a nightmare where a man sees a damned and desolate future created by human carelessness. The lyrics are poetic, and I urge readers to get their eyes on them. But let’s avoid that for now and discuss the music; the music here is based on chugging guitars and crashing power chords, intoxicatingly catchy and melody-driven riffs, and some of the most intensely delivered choruses out there. That’s not just for this song, but the others that follow. “Eastern Sunset” has this one particular point where a chorus of vocals bellow a powerful melody throughout the bridge, and “Ivory Towers” has its own sort of creative bridge with Dave Hill going wild with his ardent messages crafted into the perfect, most uplifting melody. Most of this music is constructed to build up to a certain point where the listener climaxes, and that’s just about the hardest but most rewarding way to compose music.

There are a few songs that differ from this standard though, like “Lion’s Share” which is just a fun verse-chorus rocker. Again, “Hold On to the Dream” follows the same format as W.A.S.P.’s “The Headless Children” where the earlier songs are more epic and the later are more rocking. It depends what version you buy though, as I believe some have the tracks in a different order. My CD version is like this, though.

“Coming Home” is a great ballad to close the album on, because the lyrics to it just like all the songs on here, are gorgeous. Every song tells its own non-cliché story about everything from a little immigrant girl reminiscing of her homeland, to elephants kidnapped from Africa and forced into the circus, to a man released from prison who wants nothing more than to celebrate and hold his lover again. They’re just interesting stories and I really wish more metal bands would sing about this sort of stuff, because I thoroughly enjoy hearing it.

If you’re not sure whether this album is for you, imagine a whole record of songs where every single one is around the same quality or better than “Don’t Break the Circle.” That’s what we’re dealing with here: powerful stuff, and now more than ever, great musicianship from every department. Superb album Demon!