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Feeling hazy and anemic today, and there’s something fucked up on my eyelid. Perfect to make today’s Metal Monday focused on Dream Death’s “Journey Into Mystery” lp. In my world, this is the best lp on New Renaissance records no contest, except for the licensed Bathory and Sepultura records they did. Oh Anne Boylan, you really fucking struck gold on this one.

Dream Death are probably one of the first bands to owe a serious debt to Celtic Frost in the USA, or for that matter anywhere I guess. This lp pretty much sounds like it could have come right from Tom Warrior, except that the vocals take a little more of a Slayer style bark/shout. The guitars are a gloriously treble-less grind, oozing riff after riff onto the doomy landscape of the music. Each song is a mini-epic the shortest running about 4 and a half minutes. Honestly there’s really nothing else I feel this record owes itself to nearly as much as To Megatherion. “Elder Race” is an absolute crushing steam-roller slow-mo track veers into explicit reptoid-lore a hundred times more insane than Axegrinder’s Rise Of The Serpent Men. Other tracks are about zombies, blood rituals, and other generally evil subjects. The album definitely sticks to a specific influence and formula, but still has enough touches that let is rise up as its own entity. Also of course, in the New Ren tradition, it has some great budget metal artwork. Observe: