Here Comes The Flood

I didn't know what to expect when I've put the CD into my player, but I was attracted by the cover, it seemed very nice. After less than 2 minutes of music I was already under the charm of Dreamtide. I immediately thought : these guys sound like Fair Warning ! Well, when later I read the promo sheet that came with the album, I saw the label "Featuring Ex-Fair Warning Members" ... no kidding :) ! Basically If you like Fair Warning, then you're gonna like Dreamtide. Actually 3 members of Fair Warning are in Dreamtide : CC Behrens (drums), Torsten Lüderwald (keyboards) and Helge Engelke, guitar player and songwriter. Well, his guitar playing is so unique, that you'll recognize him on everyone of the songs, he's got this special touch to make his guitar cry. Musically the album is filled with mostly wonderful songs, a few killer tracks (the first one : What You Believe In simply being an atomic bomb and makes almost worth the album on its own !),a few good ballads but also a few medium tracks. The overall is very melodic, the guitars are crying and the keys are filling the sound spectrum. The vocal performance of Olaf Senkbeil is quite good, he's got some great vocal lines, but maybe tries to vary his style too much from time to time. The production is absolutely brilliant, well, near perfect actually. The artcover and booklet artwork is very very nicely done as well. Well, although I might have thought that Fair Warning had just changed their name after the first listen, some details makes me think that the new blood does add something to the sound of the band, now will this new formation be better than Fair Warning ? which I consider to be an excellent Hard Rock band - that's too soon to say... This first album is for sure a step in the right direction, displaying a showcase of quite different songs, soft and hard ones, heavy and classical rock ones,... But for the time being, if you like melodic Hard Rock bands à la Fair Warning, Shakkra or other Crystal Ball... then you definitely want to give Dreamtide a try.