December 2019 Feature Release - The Guardians Edition

The start of December sees us kicking off a new undertaking. We'll be nominating a monthly feature release for each clan & are asking you to rate, review & discuss it for no other reason than because we enjoy it. Ben & I will certainly be contributing & we look forward to hearing your thoughts too. 

This month's feature release for The Guardians is the 1982 third album from Dutch heavy metallers Picture entitled "Diamond Dreamer." It's quite an underground release that we feel has never received the attention it deserved. It's also the only Picture album to feature talented Israeli front man Sammy "Shmoulik" Avigal. We're interested to hear what you think of it so don't be shy.

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I read over Daniel's review after giving this a listen and I'm inclined to agree, this is some high quality, straight up and to the point early 80's heavy metal with a fantastic vocalist. I have a soft spot for that powerful but high pitched wailing that legends like Dio and Halford were and are so adept at. It's a shame that Avigal was only around for one album and never really caught a big break. Seems like he has released a solo venture, but not much else past his 80's Dutch heavy metal days. 

This album just has that heavy metal attitude about it that a lot of other bands like them fail to capture. I don't think there are many standout tracks, but there aren't any lackluster ones either, the album is great through and through. "Diamond Dreamer" and "Message From Hell" sound exactly like premier 80's heavy metal songs that could still be rocking out on classic rock radio stations, but for some reason got completely skipped over. 

While Picture doesn't reinvent anything or create anything particularly fantastic on Diamond Dreamer, the quality of the entire album definitely rivals some of the greats of that time, which is no easy feat.