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The Dreamside: Sorrow Bearing Tree
The Dreamside Sorrow Bearing Tree CD Album Review

The Dreamside: Sorrow Bearing Tree

Melodic Alternative/Gothic Rock/Metal
4.0/5.0

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Spin Moon Media
Words: Craig Hartranft    Added: 23.07.2014

Sometimes it's just best to go it alone, do things your way. After bouncing around from label to label, from Nuclear Blast to Dancing Ferret to Lion Music, over the last 20 years, The Dreamside introduces their sixth album, Sorrow Bearing Tree, on their own label Spin Moon Media. It's an obvious reference to 2005's Spin Moon Magic.

The Dreamside Sorrow Bearing Tree Photo

The Dreamside: staring straight ahead.

But The Dreamside has been doing their own thing since the start. While references to other female-fronted rock or metal bands are obvious, they're not necessarily trapped in a certain genre. Their sound is symphonic, but Kemi Vita isn't quite the high-pitched operatic voice that pierces your ears like a sonic needle. Their synth symphonic layers offers more lush atmosphere and ambience rather than bombastic embellishment.

That basically drops them out of the female-fronted symphonic power metal genre as well. It may put them more into the soup of modern alternative rock, something akin to goth rock Muse as there is also a current of melancholy and sorrow within. Breathe With Me and Rain and Rivers, can be equally somber and spooky while soaring. But the melancholy is often butched up with a rhythmic rock groove as within Seraphim and the uber-catchy Miracle Days, likely my favorite song.

One song that may define the band both past and present, roots and influences, comes with their cover of Depeche Mode's Walking In My Shoes, and features a duet it with Pyrogenesis' Flo Schwarz. Having never been a fan of Depeche Mode's often morose electronic gibberish and weirdness, The Dreamside's version is much more pleasing, even redemptive.


The Dreamside - Walking In My Shoes (Depeche Mode cover)


Ultimately, for this listener, the persuasive element of The Dreamside is always vocalist Kemi Vita, one of the best in the biz; and then, when the band tricks you into enjoying their melancholy sound by arranging it with a rock groove and a catchy refrain. If anything, Sorrow Bearing Tree both stays the course and ups the band's game for the better.


The Dreamside - Sorrow Bearing Tree





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In Short

Moved by the the beautiful voice of Kemi Vita, The Dreamside returns with their fusion of melodic, alternative, and gothic laced rock with symphonic elements.

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