Dreams in Darkness

The facts: Fox-Lin Torres has been the vocalist of Battlerage since the Chilean heavy/power band first formed 20 years ago and is the only original member, while the rest of the current line-up all joined in 2018, seemingly after the recording of Dreams in Darkness, the current most recent album. The only other permanent member at the time this was made, guitarist Soco Moraga (though he is credited with guitars, bass, and drums here), had only come into Battlerage in 2016, surviving not much beyond the release of this album. More facts: the vocals dominate most of the tracks on Dreams in Darkness, Torres’s gnarly Spanish-accented wailing and groaning singing style coming across as too flavoursome for me, sort of like a looser Grave Digger, especially when turned up loud and presiding over the sometimes neglected music. My conclusion: I guess we had a kind of diva moment here, or a series of them that included the exchanging of band members, positioning of the vocals, and probably the choice of putting the singer on the throne on the album cover too. That’s not to say that the fourth Battlerage album is spoiled by these decisions, but I can certainly feel the effect of them sapping some of the potential goodness within.

The songwriting underwhelms in places, with weird choices all over the place, exemplified by the baffling placement of the title track as a bonus song when it’s probably one of the best, while opener ‘Victim of a Liar Heart’ struggles with structure and coherence, leaving a confused first impression. The production helps little in this regard, all the vocal layering and broadness making a mess on top of sloppy drum tones (the snare sounds slow and plastic) and awkward control of the rhythms, which suggest that Moraga was not the ideal choice behind the kit. That first song comes in like a stadium metal cut, fooling around with slow grandeur before erupting in power metal palm-muting and those Marmite vocals; features like a sudden stop and break into clean guitar, then a real awkward breakdown after the solo just make me plain uncomfortable. Similar situations more specifically related to the vocals come around on the thrashy up-tempo ‘Hide from Yourself’, which impresses in the verses before sliding weirdly into a new key atop power chords. Torres doing weird faux growls (not metal ones, but like that play-sexy growl) and then reminding me that bathos is a thing when he intones “Everyone will come to the metal show” just puts the cherry on top.

The guitar playing fares much better…depending on the arrangements, at least. Pretty much all the solos hit the spot, vibing on classic metal goodness, and they get a position in every song. ‘I See the Winter in Your Heart’ may be the longest cut among the selection at over 7 minutes, though that’s not due to the vocals taking over such a large part of it; the commencement has a slow King Diamond feel, then Moraga has the freedom to detail every section with shredding despite not using up too many riffs on this piece. ‘Prisons of Fire’ sees a good combination of riff and vocal for a repeated verse that cooks faster than average, while ‘Intellectual Dreams’ appears as a brief instrumental showing off some tricky chops and also the flaws of the production, which wasn’t made for palm-muted riffing. How ‘Placer Infernal’ strikes you may be a good indicator of your tolerance for Dreams in Darkness: I guess it was designed as an old-school rock ‘n’ roll jam, what with the continuous bassline under the verses and drawn-out chord shapes that make me think of Scorpions, plus very clear positions for the vocals to show some character. To me, parts of it seem bare and stalling for time, plus one especially random yowl from Torres has me asking myself so many questions. And that’s the thing with Battlerage on this showing: too many questions, not enough answers. Not for me at all.