I have a confession to make: I've never been interested with instrumental-only music, excluding some very rare exceptions on some metal albums, classical music, electronic music and soundtracks, and fantastic pieces of Commodore 64 and Amiga music. Maybe I've just missed the cream of the crop of instrumental music.

Swedish Jonas Wrenning and English Sam Brokenshaw clubbed together to form an instrumental band. So Sepia Dream was born. The name sets as few limits as possible for the duo. 'The Sublime' is a theme album (yes, an instrumental album can also be thematic as well as one with vocals). Sepia Dreamer soaked into a beautiful at first glance yet very disturbing and violent painting by artist JW Turner, titled “Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying - Typhoon coming on (’The Slave Ship’)”. The band hope to emulate the awesome, fearful forces and powers of nature.

So, have Sepia Dream managed to portrait the terrible beauty of nature? Yes, they have, but do not expect any extreme manoeuvres. Flowing in the currents of dark metal, prog rock and soundtrackish music, the duo have created quite an unique listening experience. From metal world, established names of Swedish and English dark/doom metal legends whirl in my mind. In prog rock territory, it's also dark. 'The Sublime' flows nicely from the second track til the end, except a few strange decisions, for example the opener's speedily faded away end. So maybe a slight refining should have been done. Mithras's drummer Leon Macey handles the sessions on this one, and does it by serve varying, and why not some experimental, rhythms. Just do not expect lightning-speed of his band... About the sound: it's organic, but could be heavier, so the destructive forces would be more powerful.

'The Sublime' should be examined by dark metal fans. Do it, even if you think you can't handle instrumental-only music. Does work on headphone listening as well as during reading a good book. Maybe also with other thing like having sex, but I haven't tried it yet. This is definitely not a wreck!

Rating: 7 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
04/25/2007 17:11