INTRODUCING: Dreamwalker

2020 will most certainly be a year to remember, especially for musicians. The pandemic that has been sweeping worldwide has thrown a spanner in the works of many plans leaving bands with little option but to cancel meticulously planned touring and album releases amongst many other events. Cleveland based progressive metal outfit DREAMWALKER have taken this unfortunate situation in their stride.

“We’ve been staying as busy as possible” states drummer JD. “The lockdown has complicated things and pretty much shot our entire album cycle down but ultimately it has forced us to step up our creativity on every front. All of us have day jobs so we’ve still been pressing forward”.

Whilst their sound predominantly falls under the progressive metal/metalcore remit DREAMWALKER include a wide variety of influences into their arrangements to provide a diverse blend of styles. “We love to build a lot of layers into our music” explains guitarist Jake. “As well as being influenced by bands such as ERRA, NORTHLANE and PERIPHERY we also blend a wide array of influences such as death metal, black metal, jazz and even sea shanties! I feel our sound has grown in a direction that we’re all happy with. As we learn more about how each person writes I think that it allows us to shape the music in a more balanced way.” adds JD. “We’re in a music scene where a lot of bands are starting to sound similar. So we’re also trying to make our sound as unique as possible and ultimately, just write what feels good to us” comments vocalist Rob.

After the release of their well received debut EP entitled Solace In Perspective in 2018 the band focused their efforts on creating their first full length effort. This would become Sun Through A Harsh Winter. The album was scheduled to be released in April but an executive decision was made to postpone the release, using a drip-fed approach as each track was released individually culminating in the full product being released in June. A decision that has paid dividends for the band. “Honestly, it ended up doing us a favour” admits JD. “Granted it happened under terrible circumstances but it has helped build our audience in the long run and has allowed us to mature in the realm of the music business. Switching to a ‘waterfall’ release gave extra attention to each song and a few songs which we had no intention of releasing as a single actually blew up. We have experienced an out-pour of support and new fans from places like Korea and Australia! It’s been staggering”.

The creative process for Sun Through A Harsh Winter allowed for DREAMWALKER to utilise the skills and experience they had acquired from the previous release and expand their horizons, pushing their sound to new territories. “We’ve grown and matured as musicians, people and friends and have really come to trust each other to work in the best interest of the collective” explains JD. “It’s that trust that has ultimately been a deciding factor to our existence. We wanted to put out an album that tested our creativity, musicianship, and songwriting skills and weren’t 100% sure how people would react. Some would probably love it, some would probably hate it, and that’s alright. To see the amount of support we’ve been getting from all over the globe has been breathtaking. It was truly a representation of us as a group as well as individual highlights. We definitely experimented with different sounds. More mellow and jazzier passages, odd time signatures, metric modulation, polymeters and more tones than we ever thought possible”. “After we released Solace In Perspective we discovered a sound that suited us all better” adds Rob. “We feel Sun Through a Harsh Winter has been pretty well received so far. Especially since it was a D.I.Y release and we’re a brand new band. We worked really hard to set up our CD release show this year. But unfortunately we had to cancel it due to the pandemic. We’ve just been trying to promote it as much as possible. It’s just a matter of finding the right people that want to hear what we have to say. It’s certainly more of a challenge without shows. Shows are what we live for, and the amazing people we get to meet by pure chance at these shows are what makes those experiences worth it”.

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Read about DREAMWALKER and more upcoming bands in Issue 3 of our New Blood magazine via Patreon.