Just when I thought things were gonna go downhill for Dream Evil and the magic was going to be lost they leave me stunned as they have bounced back tighter and stronger than ever before making ‘United’ a more than appropriate title. Losing legendary drummer Snowy Shaw (now the lead singer for Therion) and heavy metal’s brightest guitarist of the present and future to come Gus G. (of the amazing Firewind) just spelled the end for me.

I am a huge fan of the first two albums "Dragonslayer" and "Evilized". I also like "The Book of Heavy Metal" a lot but felt it lost some of its edge and did not compete on the same level with the first two. Upon hearing the opening track here ‘Fire! Battle! In Metal!’ I was left with my mouth wide open. New guitarist Mark Black while not quite Gus G. is pretty damn impressive and I know I can easily adjust to this guy. The first two albums were more heavy power metal (Hammerfall, Manowar, Helloween) while the third one was more traditional old school sounding (Whitesnake, Scorpions, Saxon) with some of the crunch of the first two albums but not all of it.

"United" to me is the merging of all that the band has done so far and making this their finest album yet. When I mentioned the above bands I use their names to describe the vein this music is geared in, but I truly believe that Dream Evil are a unit standing strong on their own. Dream Evil to me has truly become one of the big boys. This album is just full of great ripping anthems taking you back to the glory days of the music we all love so much. I can just see ‘Higher on Fire’ being played in front of 30,000 people at Germany’s Wacken Open Air festival and the whole crowd on their feet singing a long. ‘Love is Blind’ is the ballad and while some may call this gay I feel it gives a band balls to show a softer side in the middle of a heavy metal onslaught and adds great variety to the music. In case this one put any of you to sleep it follows up with ‘Falling’ which sounds like it could have been on "Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 2" (shame on you if you don’t know who’s album that is). Impressive high pitched screams at the end of ‘Back From the Dead’ will leave you wondering if Rob Halford popped in the studio for the recording of this song.

Overall, we have a truly remarkable album here and it has restored my faith in a band that I thought was finished. This album will appeal to all sorts of hard rock and heavy metal fans and is a must have. A tour of the U.S. is in order for this band and I feel they will do very well, perhaps the next Dragonforce in terms of success? I can see it. I feel they are ready to move from mid card status up to main event and headline the big shows overseas along side the best of them. Kudos to Dream Evil for kicking ass all in the name of true Heavy Metal.