Holly crap, there is great talent in Central America after all! It seems that I have been spending way too much time just listening to Costarrican and European bands, its time for a serious wake up call; and that call comes from El Salvador, in Dreamlore and Symbolic. The first one a nice well written, perfectly performed melodic death metal, the second one a mix of power metal with some great thrash riffs that make them sound a little progressive at times.

Since this is a split cd, let’s split the review and the score:
Dreamlore 9.3 : This band is great, they are a mix of Dismember and Dark Tranquility, leaning maybe a bit more into melodic death metal in their riffs, but getting a unique sound with some great vocals going from deep growls to a more slicing evil scream. Prelude to the Dark Abyss begins this record with some catchy almost heavy metal riffs, and some fast drums, this is where the band reminds you to a fast Dismember mainly because of the solos, which are great by the way.

Flicker in the Candlelight, continues fast and melodic, letting you get inside the song as soon as the lyrics make their appearance, probably by this song you will go back to the album box just to make sure they are from El Salvador, because this guys sound so Swedish is scary! A couple of nice tempo changes and some solos are added to the mix just to make the song more interesting, there is a clam moment before the end of the song, a heavy metal guitar plays as beautiful as you can image and its accompanied by an acoustic one, making the end of this song an incredible piece to remember.

Death Omen, just to remind you that this guys play death metal with an awful amount of heavy metal riffs and some melodic tunes that transform every song into a real delight; shit by this song I was a huge fan of this guys, I mean I haven’t heard this kind of quality in songwriting coming from central America in a long time, I mean every single underground band plays raw death metal, brutal death metal, you know? So it’s kind of hard to actually find a melodic death metal band that plays so well on every single track. To end the Dreamlore part of the album, it’s just fucking amazing!

Symbolic 8.5 : Well here is some power/thrash metal for you, the vocals give Symbolic some hint of progressives, something like Nevermore’s vocals from time to time, at least on the first track is very emphatic on this aspect. The drums are heavy artillery pounding the shit out of you, really great drum work on this band.

Shadows of Temptation, like I said before, the drums, the drums, they destroy everything on their path, while the guitars have some thrash/death riffs traces and the vocals are power metal no doubt about that; the song has some complicated moments mainly in the tempo changes; nice catchy song, is just that the style of mixing power vocals with thrash riffs is not my favorite way of doing metal, but putting my preferences aside they do sound great and play every note to perfection.

Running Out, the vocals is this one do fit a little more, they sound more rock n roll than the first one from Symbolic, well the entire song apart from the devastating attack of the drums is more hard rock oriented, something that gives the band a broader sound. The guitars have a Guns n’ Roses smell to it that really catches your attention.

Pleasures of Ego, this song goes back to that progressive vocal sound that Shadows of Temptation introduce to us, you can say this song is a mix of Shadows of Temptation and the rock n roll smell of Running Out, truly a good track, but not as strong as the first one from the band in this split.

To review, both amazing bands, I prefer Dreamlore style, but that’s just because I’m more into death metal than power, anyway, two bands that I could easily see sing by the big labels, so Century Media, Nuclear Blast… you guys better start looking this way in the map to find new acts.