I was quite surprised, but I did listen two or three times to Reverie’s debut album Bliss before I noticed that the members involved are younger than twenty years of age! What a maturity they do inherit; it’s truly remarkable! There were two demonstrational recordings before, but I am pretty sure that there is much more professionally recorded material to come. But let’s not run too fast, and focus on the first-things-first principle.
First things first, and that’s this debut album by these Danish guys. It consists of nine tracks that have a total running time of thirty five minutes. Bliss starts off with Dust And Dirt, and this truly sets the tone for what’s more to come. Dust And Dirt, and actually the whole Bliss-album, bring something that is rooted within the origins of the so-called Swedeath-scene, you know, the typifying Swedish-oriented Old School Death Metal trend, injected with timeless elements from the Swedish scene, or better, the trans-European scene (with the Scandinavian and West-European ones coming to mind especially), and flavoured by elements from the blackened and thrash-edged Metal scenes as well. Actually, most of the pieces are some kind of symbiosis of universal blackthrash-edged Morbid Death Metal with an old styled approach in several senses: sound, song writing and execution. It might appeal to fans of Tribulation, Morbus Chron and even Sarcofago (!) and the likes…
And let’s finish with a rather strange yet true statement: this kind of Death metal isn’t just Death Metal at all; this approach touches every single possible deadened relationship, yet without dwelling into aural spheres of (traditional) Death Metal. I know this might be somewhat confusing, but as soon as you listened to this stuff, you will surely recognize my statement. Even the sludgiest levels of Punk Rock aggression might influence the whole experience, and in combination with the fabulous sound (the production is, once again, of a terminally acceptable level), the result is more than just impressing / impressive, cf. tracks like Circles, Dust And Dirt or the title track.