• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

Dreamtale are a band I listen to a lot, whenever I’m in the mood for some seriously melodic Power Metal in the Stratovarius/Sonata Arctica vein (without wanting to listen to either of those bands), and because they are so damn derivative I can’t score them higher than this I’m afraid, except if we were talking about Ocean’s Heart, which truly is a magnificent release. For the album they pulled out of the bag to follow it, 2005’s Difference, the Finnish sextet found themselves another frontman who sounds exactly like the one before and the one before that (who happens to be guitarist/band leader Rami Keranen). There’s not an awful lot of difference between this and Ocean’s Heart, which means this is another double kicking magic-fest full of sparkling Helloween axe-worship, star-dipped keyboards, super-shiny production and just about the happiest melodies to come out of a kid’s nursery rhyme. The sound of Difference is unmatched, an absolute master-class in Finnvox production, and the songs are mostly great, with a few that don’t reach the heights set out by "New Life", "Secret Door", and the bloody stupendous opener "Lost Souls", a song all Power Metallers need in their playlists.

Fans of the style at its most pompous, its most unashamedly polished, need to grab this album. It’s so unoriginal it hurts, but what the hell? It’s better than what their influences are throwing out.