The Dream Calls for Blood

This album is solid, it has a flare or flame to it with sheer energy flowing. These Bay Area thrashers have been active for quite some time! Pretty much 30 years it's safe to say. And they're still making good music. This one isn't their best, but it isn't their worst either. Quite a variety of sounds coming from acoustic guitar-work but mostly thrash guitar riffing. The leads were decent, too. But I really enjoyed the rhythms. And the vocals of course! They go well with the music. Most of the songs are high energy! They have that Death Angel groove to them as well. Kind of like on their earlier work 'Act III'. But not entirely.

These guys are killer live as well. Too bad no concerts in Covid-19. The band keeps making killer music even up until now. They're veterans, safe to say that. They still have that intensity to their riff-writing. I would say all the songs I liked pretty much. I think the vocals carry the music and overall energy to the record. They really need to keep going in this thrash metal direction. And the riffs are pretty original sounding (like always). They change things up a bit but not that much. I like the guitars the tone is chunky. They don't need to hold back in their writing. They know exactly what they're doing.

The production quality was excellent it did them justice. And they didn't really need to change anything on here. I like the music the most but the vocals just have so much intensity. Not ALL THE TIME but a lot of the time. Their tempos change up quite a bit which gives the music variety. I cannot stress enough of the guitars sounding KING. They're just so darn catchy. The lead trade-offs too are phenomenal. It's a sheer domination! There's only a few places where you find some real screaming. But not an overabundance of it. The intensity of the guitars it goes well with.

This is a later album in their career as thrash metal musicians. They're still killing it! Support the band! I got this on CD, but I believe it's on their Bandcamp page as well. One things to notice are the guitar riffs. They're really catchy and original. They're totally slaying! This release is just sheer domination. They really know what they're doing and how to make cool, original thrash metal. There's an abundance of energy to the record that it just soars. I liked this the whole way through the album. Totally recommended for thrash metal lovers and support the Bay Area thrashers Death Angel!

There are quite a number of classic thrash bands, both in the States and Europe, who for me really haven't survived their transitions into a more modern style and brick housed production. Okay, maybe they've survived on touring and tuning in a younger audience, but simply haven't been putting out the same caliber of material they were capable of in their fiending youth. Essentially the stuff has become 'dad thrash', competent and mixed for the times but lacking the essential soul of the 80s. Acts like Exodus and Onslaught have fallen to such a fate, but a few others, like Death Angel, make it work for them. I could level a bunch of complaints at this band's body of work starting with Relentless Retribution, but the fact is they handle their modern body of work just as infectiously as they did their seminal efforts. Nope, they haven't ever released a rival for their debut The Ultra-Violence and I doubt they will, that was such a distinct, fevered and evil slab of West Coast thrash, but when I hear their modern efforts I don't feel even vaguely like I'm getting ripped off, or that they're anything less than genuine.

Part of this is Mark Osequeda's angsty, nasally vocal style, somewhere between Joey Belladonna and Russ Anderson in strain and tone, he just injects this edge to the material which aids even the less inspiration riffs here. And riffs there are a plenty, some of them memorable and nasty, and others just seem like they're going through the motions to play with their pretty distortion, but like a modern Artillery, they keep throwing them after you and never really running out of ideas, and I think there are far more winners here on The Dream Calls for Blood than there are losers. It's also a creative record, they'll bust off into some hard rock grooves, or some floatier atmospheric section without warning, helping to round-out the majority of the meaty thrashings, Cavestany and Aguilar are legion when it comes to the rhythmic syncopation and if you're looking for some neckbreaking I think this album really delivers. Leads flurry on by with bluesy abandon, all flash and testosterone and entirely suited to the massacre going on, while the combination of Will Carroll's seamless beats and those rhythm guitars create an appreciably intense lower end to the record. Granted, I think the drums do lack a little nuance and personality, but they're not really what I focus on here.

The lyrics are all about rage, revenge and other thrash-worthy feelings, perfect for the adolescents attracted to this subgenre, but not written cheaply or stupidly. There's a cover of Sabbath's "Heaven and Hell" which is played pretty close to the vest, but due to the mix it fits right in with their own original material, and Osequeda is up to the task although some of the oohs and aah lines have a cheesy delivery (not that they didn't in the first place). So when I think of veteran thrash acts who have thrived with a new, blockbuster sort of production fitting to the loudness levels of the 21st century, Destruction's The Antichrist always comes to mind as the exemplar, and there are no tracks here which are nearly on that level of me wanting to constantly hit replay until I've worn my finger to the bone (or the CD to slag). But I think much of Death Angel's modern material certainly passes a quality check, using its tools well and not just a overproduced, overinflated bore like these enduring bands often put out with their bigger studio budgets. The Dream Calls for Blood is frankly one of Californians' best albums period, a very well balanced attack. It's no Ultra-Violence, an anomaly borne from the members' then-youthful creativity and raw aggression, but it'll do in a pinch.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Death Angel is a classic Bay Area-thrash act that most thrashers are most likely to be aware of. While only in their mid-to-late teens when they dropped their rather legendary debut The Ultra-Violence, the band was the talk of the bay during that time. After that, their career took turns, and depending on who you ask, many fans (myself included) will say that they more-or-less lost their balls and started to kind of suck. They made two more albums before splitting, and later reunited in the 2000's. Their first two reunion albums didn't exactly raise eyebrows, either. In fact, it wasn't before 2010 when the band got themselves a completely new rhythm section, as well as producer, that they actually turned into something truly great and exciting again. But while 2010's great effort Relentless Retribution was nothing but awesome, it sounded very influenced by modern metal bands of the times such as God Forbid or even Mastodon.

And so came 2013. The band was back with a new album featuring the same line-up and producer as the previous record - an anticipated Death Angel release for the first time in 25 years! This was the one chance the band had to prove themselves not being the occasional "one hit-album wonder" (for lack of a better term), and boy did they succeed with it. Not only is this album a continuation of their re-born fire, but this album is also much more "pure" than its predecessor, sounding more true thrash metal for the first time since the debut in 1987. With that said, it's certainly not a new The Ultra-Violence by any means. This album completely lacks the very (obviously) youthful energy of their early albums, and particularly that garage-feeling of the debut. Instead we find a tight, mature and experienced band revisiting their roots in a modern take.

The album is packed with a hard riffing style that is not rarely reminiscent to classics like "Kill As One" and "Final Death", but everything is really turned up a few gears technique-wise. This especially go for the vocal department, seeing as the formerly young and somewhat naive Mark Osegueda has grown into a really good singer in latter years. That is something very unusual for a thrash vocalist, or metal vocalist overall, and he simply sounds way better than ever, even giving strong Dio influences at times. While he doesn't have a very "brutal" voice, I much prefer his rather "traditional" thrash vocals before the likes of modern death metal-style Chuck Billy (Testament), the evidently aged Blitz (Overkill), or the ever-cartoonish Zetro (Exodus).

The band once again went with Jason Suecof for this album - a good choice, seeing as the previous album (also produced by Jason) really brought the band back musically. His production values are very polished, perhaps even a bit too much at times, but the sound is crystal clear with only minor clipping heard throughout the disc's run. Perhaps the vinyl is a better go for dynamic range, but I have yet to get my hands on a copy and can only hope it's a good mastering. The drums are also a bit less-heavy (or "pushy") than their other Suecof-produced albums. This can sometimes leave me wanting a tad more actual "kick" in the bass drums, but it's all good nonetheless, especially considering how audible and deep the bass is in the mix.

At the end of the day, this is without a doubt, yet with small marginal, the band's best album since the debut. Perhaps I even like this one more actually, seeing as I have kind of played the debut a bit to death by now. I just think that speaks for itself when it comes to this album's quality. Musically this is just as good as thrash gets these days, easily beating the other old school thrash bands as well as the "revival thrash bands" in the thrash scene today. Death Angel have truly redeemed themselves by now and this one is the one you should pick up if you loved their debut.

Check-outs: Left For Dead, Succubus, The Dream Calls For Blood, Execution / Don't Save Me.

Like most of the big name thrash bands of the '80s to have continued through to, or reformed in, the past decade, I do not feel Death Angel have ever come close to matching their peak, which came with debut LP "The Ultra-Violence". In part that is due to the devastating brilliance of said 1987 record, but also down to their post-2001 reformation stuff being much too thrash-by-numbers to leave any real impact, but on "The Dream Calls for Blood" the evergreen Californians come back with a commendably renewed focus.

However, this has come partly at the expense of a collection of memorable and varied songs. "The Dream Calls for Blood" is most definitely still a thrash album but there is a meatier, chuggier aspect to the production of the rhythm section that is distinctly similar to recent Testament works and lends tunes like "Son of the Morning", "Caster of Shame" and the title track a tougher feel than I'm used to with DA. This change to a fuller sound has also caught vocalist Mark Osegueda in its traps. The usually rapacious and recognisable frontman feels blunted by his delivery here, as if he is trying too hard to match the power of the music resulting in his charisma being stifled in a performance that I am struggling to enjoy as much as historically. Given the precedent is of him being one of my favourite frontmen in metal this is a touch disappointing.

Musically speaking though, for the patch jacket wearing thrasher there is still plenty to enjoy here. Never does the tempo stagnate or fall into a morass of over-sentimentality; Death Angel have simply stuck to what they know best. Lead guitarist Rob Cavestany plays a large part in this as he brings a spirit of Kirk Hammett circa "Kill 'Em All" to the party with solos frequently bookending segments of tracks, elsewhere it is the chorus in a number of songs that remains the most notable aspect - "Succubus" and "Detonate" two examples of this.

Still though, after countless listens I still can't give myself over to "The Dream Calls for Blood". In part it is due to how easily it could be exchanged for Testament's latter works, or at a push, the efforts for Exodus, in what is an all-too-typical beefcake thrash production. Death Angel's commitment and energy in these conditions is not under question; the end product however just does not stoke the fires as was the case in days gone by.

Originally written for www.Rockfreaks.net