Fallujah is an american progressive technical death metal band from San Francisco, California who celebrates ten years of existence this year. The 5-piece group released their 3rd full-length entitled “Dreamless” in April 2016 via Nuclear Blast.
“Dreamless” is composed by twelve themes and counts with four guest musicians: female singers Katie Thompson (Chiasma) and Tori Letzler (who does the live vocals for Fallujah as well); singer Mike Semesky (Ordinance, Raunchy, ex-Intervals, ex-The Haarp Machine) and guitarist Tymon Kruidenier (ex-Cynic, ex-Exivious).
This album sounds very similar to their previous releases. You can listen songs with fast and agressive riffs, excellent played drums that make any drummer proud (courtesy of Andrew Baird), combining the awesome technique and agressiveness with ambient sounds. Perhaps the only negative remark would be the overuse of the ambient sounds that can make the listener get distracted when listening through the album.
Songs like ”Dreamless”, ” Fidelio” and ”Les Silences” are excellent in making the listener embark on an introspective journey. The other tracks are what can be defined as pure Fallujah style. Comparing to their previous releases where only the powerful harsh vocals of Alex Hofmann can be listened, the clean female vocals are considered upgrade in this album.
In conclusion, Dreamless is a perfect album for fans of both progressive and technical metal, who seek the balanced mixture of pure aggressiveness and ambient progressive sounds.
