At some point, bringing together different sounds results in a truly quantifiable mess. I will always applaud the attempt to craft something different and interesting for any reason whether it be in the name of pure curiosity or the desire to create something unique that you can truly call your own, but it’s a true challenge to bring them all together should be too ambitious. That’s a pitfall that far too many have found themselves writhing in as they’ve discovered they’ve tried to take too much from too many different sources to in order to create some patchwork that was never meant to be. On occasion, however, someone manages to bring something together that almost shouldn’t work. When I first came upon Dream Vision’s bold attempt with its latest album, I had my doubts, but it’s now that I find myself pleasantly surprised by what I found.

Typically, whenever one thinks of black metal the neon lights that appear on the cover art of “Rêves” typically aren’t the first images that come to mind. Alongside that, blending the genre with cues from post-rock is already going against the grain somewhat even despite how far blackgaze has come since its inception, but it’s still not something you tend to expect to coincide with such a wonderful array of color. On top of all of that, bringing electronic elements into the fold quickly seems like an easy way to make the album in question fall apart since that’s a very dangerous and difficult concoction to even try to bring together in any form, but it’s for the very whole of “Rêves” that Dream Vision manages to defy the odds. The blend of different styles can be quite jarring at times, especially whenever the black metal vocals come into play, but it’s hard for me to gaze into the shifting world of “Rêves” and not find myself utterly entranced by the unique sonic potion that I find before me as Dream Vision manages to bring something truly challenging to life in a form that is competent almost arguably better than it should. This is the kind of what that shows us what it means to have an artistic vision and execute it to the extent of your heart’s desire, but the fact that the work actually stands its ground even against the most basic critical points of what might go against making it interesting shows the tenacity, passion, and talent that went into the making of this record. For this isn’t a work that simply happens.

“Rêves” was put together delicately with immense effort and attention to detail in order to make sure each of the three key genres at play have more than enough time to shine on their own and to even insinuate that Dream Vision didn’t pursue that to wondrous effect would be to spit in the very face of the artist. A true testament of having artistic expression brought to fruition with any compromisation with the results surprising right from the start, Dream Vision has made itself a unique name to watch with just this album for any who want something that’s can only be wonderfully described in a single word: different.

LISTEN to “Rêves” on Bandcamp here.

FOLLOW Dream Vision on Instagram here.