Dreams of Sanity - Komödia (1997)^{Release ID: 29320}

My introduction to Austrian metal band Dreams of Sanity came about with their 2000 release, 'The Game', which is an incredible album and certainly inspired to me to track down the rest of their discography. However, while seeing reviews online that seemed to praise their earlier work as superior, I found myself feeling slightly disappointed by their raw-sounding debut, 'Komödia'.

While I can understand the lyrical themes or imagery that might come with being labelled as "gothic", I've never quite considered gothic metal itself a subgenre. Perhaps I find it too pedantic or pretentious, but I just like to keep things simple. As a result, I consider Dreams of Sanity to be a progressive or symphonic metal band. Long, intricate song structures with plenty of exotic musical passages, guitar and keyboard solos, odd time signatures, higher-ranged vocals and multiple songs that follow the same theme... it's all here.

It's just not very good.

The band is tight. They're all very good musicians, and the production is alright, though very raw and harsh compared to the bands later releases. But I just don't find anything really all too exciting in the music itself. The songs all drag on, with seemingly very few moments that actually stand out. Tracks like 'The Meeting' and 'The Ending' are alright, but even they tend to lag at times.

I can't really sum it up any better than this; I like this band, but I'm not a fan of this album. Check out 'The Game' instead.