I know I had a fan, and I know this fan was not a fan, as such, but just some goober who liked to give me shit when I wrote here before and would do a review of a power metal or trad metal band and just sit and rip on the cheese and hack factor. "If you don't like it why are you reviewing it?" this fan would say in that voice the comic shop owner from the Simpsons has. It's not a fair question, obviously. We don't send these records to ourselves, and the companies don't request that only power metal fans review their stuff, so it's fair game for anyone. You roll the dice and take your chance. But what was disturbing was the idea that someone is incapable of discerning quality in whatever musical format they may be reviewing, as though it's a given that only people who are already sold can be truly objective? Nonsense. Quite the reverse, it seems to me. A power metal fanbitch will give a bad power metal record a skewed review because it is already disposed to accept the cheese at face value. That's not a reviewer's job. I could do Country Western reviews and be able to tell after listening to a decent cross section of the style what was quality versus shit, even though the whole style makes me physically ill.

On the other hand, being a writer as well as a reviewer you tend to want to add some of your personality to a review, and my personality likes to berate and deride that which it finds pretentious, anachronistic and tired. Like, say, power metal. When someone bitches about it, I figure it's a fair bitch. I am tainting the rest of my review by making it sound like I can't be objective. So, in the spirit of a balanced and useful review I will not make any personal attacks on power metal, Jacob's Dream or anyone fucked up enough to listen to this worn out shit disguised as metal.

I am glad I got that out of the way. I feel very mature.

Jacob's Dream are not a new band, and they are not playing a new style; slower paced, galloping power metal with vibrato saturated vocals. The band is very tasteful in their approach, keeping the superficial to a minimum and letting the music speak for itself. Being power metal means you are going to get more solos than you may think are necessary, but in the hands of a band with common sense this can be a plus, and Jacob's Dream has that sense. These songs are not about anthems, but rather about storytelling, and as such are involved in a deeper sense than a lot of what you here in this genre.

Of course, the real problem with any kind of band that is playing such a well worn style is predictability. And at no point in this record was I surprised or excited by what I heard. I could almost sit down with a bass and play the next part of a given song before it actually happened. It's that hack. But that is part of the charm, I suppose. People don't stay involved in this music because it challenges them. They stay because they know it will satisfy. And I believe this record, while not spectacular, satisfies.

The production is a tad on the bland side, muddier than it needs to be. It gives it an old "feel", really like listening to "The Warning" era Queensryche. On this score I definitely expect better. If the band is beating an already beaten path then the production has a real job to do, making something contemporary out of the album. In this it fails.

The musicianship is good, which for a power metal band means average. The whole genre is based on tight riffing, tight changes and complimentary soloing. If you are not good at what you do, you won't even get a sniff, so "good" is the mean. What this recording could have used was someone just fucking shit up, though. Again, something to inject some excitement into the mix. Everyone sounds chained to the songs like rowers in a Roman Galley. The vocals are not as bad as many get in this style, but the droning, absolutely controlled style and lack of emotional delineation only serve to keep the songs from springing to any kind of life. Sometimes the singer will give it a good growl for effect, but that only serves to illustrate the sameness of the rest of his performance.

Bottom line is this, to me, this sounds like an overly safe recording, but one that is not embarrassing or grating. It's a record full of musical stories and the band seems almost too unwilling to get in their own way. I doubt this record will light a fire under even the most die hard power metal geek, but it will certainly satisfy the need for surging, old-school heavy metal that drives the genre. If that sounds like your bailiwick, this is a CD I can recommend. If not I will just say that, for a power metal record, it's pretty decent.