Tides of War

Dreamtale has made little secret of their influences, in fact, they've pretty much established them as a more consistent, 2000s answer to the 90s material of Stratovarius. The similarities have always been uncanny, so it is little surprise that a former drummer of this band ended up taking Jorg Michael's place in said band's fold. But one way in which they've somewhat different with their older counterparts is with a slightly greater affinity toward the slightly more guitar oriented German sound, particularly as manifest in the work of Kai Hansen in Helloween and, perhaps more so his later work in Gamma Ray. This is brought out to a rather massive extent in this preview to their recently released 6th album "World Changed Forever", though not quite to the point of completely abandoning the more keyboard oriented character of the Finnish approach to power metal.

While not the most war-like and militaristic of songs in the style, "Tides Of War" definitely brings out a sense of soldier-like precision as it goes through the motions of restating a number of familiar ideas heard out of Gamma Ray's upper mid-tempo work, itself a continuing evolution of the style of song pioneered by Gary Moore on "Out In The Fields" and adopted by the metal world in "I Want Out". This song proves to be much closer to the melodically elaborate "Send Me A Sign" off of "Powerplant", though still maintaining a lot of the 1988 trappings in place, including an almost bluesy sounding contour to the lead guitar work at times. The Stratovarius trappings are still present as well, melding with the guitar themes in a manner similar to "Hunting High And Low" and throwing out a fast and fancy keyboard shred fest almost to the point of mimicking Children Of Bodom.

Ultimately what makes this song unique is the nimble vocal character of Erkki Seppänen, who bears some familiarity to Tomi Viiltola's work on this band's 2003 break out LP "Ocean's Heart", though with more of a higher pitched and soaring Bruce Dickinson edge to it rather than a deep and husky Geoff Tate character. He hits the high notes with laser-like precision and all the gusto needed to keep from sounding like a number of Italian bands who take the Michael Kiske vocal character to a greater extreme. He doesn't necessarily make the entire song, but it definitely separates it from the pack significantly, and his continued presence in the band after having 3 radically different sounding front men on previous studio efforts proves to be a much needed stabilizing element in what has otherwise been a chaotic series of line-up shifts for a younger band. Things are definitely looking up for the release of "World Change Forever", to the point that it may outclass both of its predecessors with Erkki at the helm.