Listing Fu Manchu, Kyuss, and Queens of the Stone Age as some of their favorite bands, it is obvious that Floodstain is one of the more American-influenced bands from the Netherlands. They specialize in playing stripped-down hard rock with an old-school groove. Although they don’t do bring anything new or mind-numbingly exciting to the blurry border where hard rock meets doomy metal, writing them off as just another Alice in Chains wannabe would be inaccurate. Floodstain falls more along the lines of a less enthralling Queens of the Stone Age.

Dreams Make Monsters is the band’s third album and the first released through Solitude Productions. These guys like to keep things very simple, and never really speed up beyond a mid-pace. The production gives the impression that things were recorded in a very nice garage, but a garage nonetheless. The guitars aren’t distorted as much as they are fuzzed out, the bass provides a flat thumping noise to back up the guitars, and the drums do little more than fulfill their role of keeping things glued together. Monster begins the album just the way the previous description would lead you to believe. A very simple Soundgarden-ish riff, a slow mid-paced drumbeat, and the gruff voice of vocalist Jozz Fernadez all make it an adequate track, not a great one.

In fact, most of these tracks are stuck in the same “good but far from great” rut that plagues so many bands today. Trailblazer is the best track on the album, and the most aggressive. It has a simple riff you can bang your head to after hearing just once, and features the catchiest chorus on the album. Strangley, it is immediately followed by the weakest song on the album, You Lose Alone. It’s not really as bad as it is too fucking long for it’s own simplistic good. Hearing Fernadez croon “You lose alone” over the same riff for 80% of the song’s duration could bring out the worst in anyone. Luckily, his very 70s-influenced solo shines a little bit of redeeming light before the track finally comes to a close.

So, what about the other four tracks? Love is Poison has a riff strikingly similar to Queens of the Stone Age’s No One Knows. Stray Dogs has a riff very similar to Love is Poison and Deathwish has a cow bell. They all start out with a fuzzy riff, lead into a verse, then a chorus, then repeat it all over again. I can only recommend this for stoner / hard rock fans who have the cash to burn on a competent, mellow band that follow directly, but oh so faithfully in the footsteps of their American heroes.