Well, I have been following DORNENREICH’s way since the “Mein Flügelschlag” demo back in 1997 and after a little while it was obvious that this band is going to be something extraordinary. A remarkable flame within a cold, empty, uninspiring, uniformed and monotonous world. The debut and the follow-up can be grossly categorized as Black Metal, but with their third release, the concept album “Her Von Welken Nächten” they catapulted themselves in an orbit far away from the planet Metal. Regarding aspects like musicianship, song-writing and intellectual approach DORNENREICH managed to raise a monument, inimitable and unique. A break of five years followed, and then there was “Hexenwind”. I guess it is not exaggerated to state that this release cause great controversy, since it featured only acoustic guitars, some kind of unplugged album. There have been such non-Metal tracks on “Her Von…” but they were embedded within a concept, so most people (like me) did not mind those tracks, because they simply fit into that concept. But the interesting point was, I liked “Hexenwind” despite being non-Metal. This album was like the title – a wind that took you on a journey, sometimes blowing stronger, sometimes just a gentle breeze. In the meantime Valnes left the band and Eviga is running the band as an one-man-project. Musically “Durch Den Traum” is very slow, definitely with more genuine Metal elements, although again long parts with very little instrumentation, very often just one instrument can be heard. There is normal singing, but repeatedly low voices, more spoken words and the song-structure is far beyond the used scheme. In fact, you can not even clearly spot when a song ends and the next begins, additionally there are no song titles (at least not on the promo-version I got), the songs are numerically listed (I to VIII). Concerning the atmosphere, I feel it a little more inhomogeneous than the predecessor. But that is maybe a contribution to the lyrical concept, which I do not want to explain here, because that would go beyond the scope of a review. So what is left to say? All those who longed for a more Black Metal version of DORNENREICH like on their first releases will be disappointed, despite the more Metal influences on “Durch …”, but generally this output is in the vein of “Hexenwind”. Both releases originate from the “Sharrketim” – sessions (a double album that never got released), and the similarity is obvious. www.dornenreich.com