THE NIGHTMARE BECOMES REALITY

Since I was a kid, always had obsession for the dark mysterious music plethoric of Baroque organ, to the point that a psychologist in the school thought I had some kind of depressive episodes (Until he discovered the dark beaurty of some of my albums and changed his opinion), so you can imagine my fascination when the postman handed me the signed copy of The Nightmare Becomes Reality by ANIMA MORTE, I felt like a kid with new toy, because I already had enjoyed Face the Sea of Darkness.

But almost from the start I noticed I was before a different album, even when they keep their mysterious and aggressive trademark, this time the Swedish guys manage to balance perfectly the darkness with the lush and pompous keyboards in the style of RICK WAKEMAN with a Mellotron in the vein of TONY BANKS. a blend that is hard to achieve without falling into stereotypes instead of capturing the essence, a common mistake among new bands that ANIMA MORTE has avoided with great dexterity

The album starts with "Voices of Beyond", a dark and terrifying intro that places the listener in the required mood for what's coming later, but only when the first guitar notes of "Corridor of Blood" start, we can notice how the band is reaching maturity, this is not an horror band anymore, they became a band that uses terror as an instrument to transmit feelings and sensations, balancing the darker sections with the pompous organ that reminds me of the 70's pioneer of the genre, plus a very hard a powerful rhythm section softened by an acoustic guitar. One of their best works of the band and a great start for the album.

"The Revenant" starts with a nice Mellotron intro that leads to a fluid guitar and percussion lead passage. This time they play with several variations over the same theme, but adding something new in each repetition in order to maintain the expectation in the listener. The guitar work is outstanding.

Despite being one of the most melodic and fluid tracks, "Contamination" is really a scary piece of music, because ANIMA MORTE creates a sense of suspense and claustrophobia when they pretend to surprise us with a blast of power but nothing happens, this feeling of an incomplete process (obviously created intentionally) leads us towards some form of pleasant desperation.

To be honest "Passage of Darkness" is probably my least favorite track, being that the complex percussion distracts me from the keyboard work, even when I enjoyed it (hey, I used to be a keyboardist, so elaborate percussion doesn't frighten me), seems like the guys have mixed too many ideas and different atmospheres, loosing a bit of coherence. Still liked it, but not my favorite.

"Solemn Graves" is frightening from the soft atmospheric entrance, that seems to prepare the listener for an explosion of terror, but again the band maintains the suspense till the end with a flawless organ performance by Fredrik Klingwall that again brings to memory the excellent Criminal Record. Great music.

The melodic "Delirious" is a bluesy song in the style of URIAH HEEP (Demons & Wizards) specially because the keyboards sound very close to Ken Hensley, but with a different guitar style, still heavy but avoiding the use of wah-wah, so the sound is very original.

"Feast of Feralia" brings ÃNGLAGÃRD to my memory (Well Mattias Olsson is a guest in the album), because they blend the aggressiveness of Heavy Prog with the most delicate Symphonic elements obtaining a final atmosphere that I only heard in Swedish post 1990 bands, specially for the exquisite collision between strong organ and delicate acoustic guitar.

Now is the turn "The Nightmare Becomes Reality)", one of the most dramatic pieces in the album, the constant hammering of the organ creates a sense of anguish that keeps me at the edge of the sit, in some way reminds me of "Into the Cage" by GENESIS, but heavier that works as an interlude before the mini-epic "Things to Come", a track in which the guys of ANIMA MORTE rest a bit from the heavy obscure atmosphere in order to focus in the classical oriented Symphonic sound of the 70's. a good relief after so many strong emotions.

The album ends with "The Dead will Walk he Earth" a good closer for a great album, because comprises all the mystery and drama of the album in a calmed but full of suspense instrumental song.

It's hard to rate "The Nightmare Becomes Reality" because I felt tempted to give them 5 stars, but some minor flaws in a couple of tracks, and the security that they are able to release even better music, made me go with 4 solid stars that should be 4.5 if our system allowed it.