CD Review: Diary of Dreams - Ego:X (Sneak Preview)

Written by Ray Dunkle Wednesday, 24 August 2011 07:15

Artist: Diary of Dreams
Title: Ego:X (Limited Edition)
Genre: Darkwave
Release Date: 26th August 2011
Label: Accession Records

Album Sneak Preview

DIARY OF DREAMS is driven by Adrian Hates; the band’s been around since the late ‘80’s and has become one of the best, personally for me I would even go as far as to say - the best band on the Darkwave / Goth scene. ‘Ego: X’ is their tenth album (discounting the live and ‘best of’ LPs). We have so far had only a “sneak preview” into the album with only being able to listen to the shorter versions of the songs, therefore this is only to give their fans and listeners a foretaste and once we have a hold of the full version the full-length and more detailed review will follow!

‘Ego:X’ is a concept album. It describes the battle of the Ego between the Id and the Superego not in a state of vacuum but within the social / political foundations of the Western civilisation. Thus the Ego (the Dasein if you prefer) under these terms is presented as “fallen” in accordance with Heidegger’s phenomenology. Of course it is a point that many bands can claim they’ve achieved quite successfully. What is striking about DIARY OF DREAMS is that they’ve embedded this sociological / philosophical remark onto huge amounts of sexualisation. The way to instil social values is to eroticise them and that can also be true about the “negative” social values such as resignation. It is a point that consciously or not the band knows exactly how to use and it is exactly that which describes this album.

The album is produced by Daniel Myer from HAUJOBB and the result is a great sound quality. On the more direct point of songs, surely the fans will not be disappointed. ‘Into X’, the ‘Elements...’ - ‘Zeitgeist’, ‘Illusion’, ‘Stagnation’, ‘Angst’, ‘Resignation’ - and ‘Out of X’, all spoken by Martin Kessler (German voice i.e. of Nicolas Cage or Vin Diesel), are used mainly as head-titles to the chapters, while Hates describes the scenery his protagonists are trapped into. The song that we had a full view of so far is ‘Undividable’; it contains something of the essence of the second part of ‘King Of Nowhere’ from the previous studio album ‘(If)’ and in a strange way, ‘Undividable’ sounds as a prelude to that song and not as a sequel or an epilogue... interesting!!! One of the best songs in ‘Ego:X’ for me is ‘Grey the Blue’ and one of the most controversial is ‘Push me’ regarding the vocals of Amelia Brightman, but for the reasons why you’ll have to wait for the full review. Of course that also holds for the rest of the songs to be described in the detailed review to follow... So, stay tuned!


Tracklist for “Ego:X” - Limited Edition

Tracklist for “Ego:X” - Regular Edition

01. Into X - 2:52
02. Undividable - 3:53
03. Lebenslang - 4:47
04. Grey the blue - 5:56
05. Element 1: Zeitgeist - 2:13
06. Immerdar - 4:51
07. Push me! - feat. Amelia Brightman - 4:33
08. Echo in me (X-Version) - 3:55
09. Splinter - 4:38
10. Element 5: Resignation -2:06
11. Mein-Eid - 5:39
12. Fateful Decoy 6:37
13. Weh:Mut - 5:03
14. Out of X - 3:10


Line-up

Adrian Hates
Gaun:A
Dejan
Flex


Websites

http://www.diaryofdreams.de/ / https://www.facebook.com/officialdiaryofdreams / http://www.myspace.com/diaryofdreams


Cover Picture




Rating

A rating of the album will follow in our full review.