Before I start rattling on and on about The Fallen, I want to thank Fevered Dreams for this release. Because, goddamn, it blew me away! I’ve been listening to this album from the moment it fell through my letter box (thanks Felix).

Well, let’s get back to The Fallen. It’s the debut album of Fevered Dreams. This band from Arizona got formed in 1996 by vocalist and guitarist Chas Bagy and drummer Matt Lamparzyk. After a lot of line-up changes the band had the first steady line-up in 2002. After a couple of demos their debut album was finally released.

The Fallen turns out to be a big surprise in the positive way. I was told that Fevered Dreams played thrash metal, but the band deserves more credit. It’s not just thrash metal, it’s a metallic cocktail containing thrash metal, speed metal, heavy metal and even a little death metal.

I guess the music is influenced by bands like Megadeth, Sepultura and perhaps even some Iced Earth. The main difference with the mentioned bands is that the vocalist of Fevered Dreams uses a more grunt-like voice.

Man, after listening to The Fallen over and over again, I must say that it’s hard to find any points of criticism. But of course I found a point of criticism, well, two actually. In my humble opinion the clean vocals are a bit weak. Well, weak may not be the proper word, because the vocals are not weak in the powerless kind of way. It’s more that the vocals aren’t always in the right key. My other point of criticism is the production. It’s not that bad, but it’s not that good either. The album is produced by the band itself and given the fact that these guys have NO LABEL (!), it explains the situation the band was in.