The duo Dream Unending makes dreamy, calm and even optimistic death and doom metal ★★★★☆

Who could have thought in the eighties, with the rise of death metal, that we would still be dealing with the morbid genre in 2022, and welcome records that push the boundaries once again?

Even non-enthusiasts, and there will be quite a few, would do well Song of Salvation of the American duo Dream Unending a chance. Derrick Vella and Justin DeTore, both active in other bands, still celebrate the growling, gut-punching vocals in their side project, but they couple that grimness with atmospheric, calm guitars and sweeping riffs that are more reminiscent of Pink Floyd than predecessors like Autopsy or Obituary. With their quiet, musical and even optimistic metal, the two also want to put the old gothic in the spotlight, the music that gave metal a gloomy yet romantic rock power in the nineties, with bands like Anathema, Paradise Lost and of course the Dutch proud The Gathering.

The combination of the roaring voice with melancholic keys, even a trumpet here and there, and the guitars plucking against each other works beautifully, in unfolded songs like the title song, which is allowed to develop patiently. The reverberating echoes under drummer DeTore’s deep and gurgling vocals also shoot the beautiful closing track Ecstatic Reign into wide open space. The guitar riff played in unison gives the song the gloomy metal groove at the start, but fifteen minutes later synthesizers and a distant jubilant guitar solo let you step out into another, dreamlike world. As if everything is still okay. And that message is of course quite unique for the genre.