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Canada's Ice War has been cranking out single releases over the last couple of years and the 3-song Dream Spirit is the latest to cross my review queue. Originally released digitally by the band, Shadow Kingdom Records is now giving it the old school treatment by putting it out on cassette. Like the Battle Zone single in 2015, Dream Spirit is a collection of authentic-sounding NWOBHM-inspired tracks. The vocals are soaked in echo, the guitars loose and energetic and the song structures relatively simple. There's a good dose of punk attitude Jo Capitalicide's voice, again keeping with the original sounds of the NWOBHM. The problem with Ice War's approach is that they've also captured a lot of the reasons why the vast majority of bands never made it. The vocal lines are poor, the lyrics are cliché and the songwriting is mundane. Whether or not these things were done purposefully is, in the end, irrelevant. From a nostalgic perspective, Dream Spirit has some value but if I want to hear actual GOOD NWOBHM I'll take Tokyo Blade's Midnight Rendezvous or Saxon's Wheels of Steel.