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"Unique" is a phrase that will never be used to describe this band.
This band is unique.
They mix solid power metal and classic metal styled hard rock very well here. They sound much different than Hammerfall to my ear, but that's probably because I've listened to Dreamland's albums dozens of times and have equal enthusiasm for Hammerfall's work.
I like Jake E Lundberg's voice a lot, but liked Dignity's album to the point that expecting that level of quality from anyone by default is unrealistic. His voice fit those melodies like a perfect marriage.
The tone of the Rhythm guitar parts aren't the best fit for his voice characteristics, luckily they don't run over other too much and a nice balance of styles is achieved with the record.
Jake E is likely one of those rare singers that needs a mic with a really high cut off point (at least over 40Khz, moving coil if possible, if you want the tech data) to be recorded properly, because the sound is so much better on Dignity's record and his voice is much more "smooth" and "stable" and all the things that lend themselves to his whole voice being captured that is not perfectly translated here. Andy is an amazing producer, so it's unfortunate for all involved that the unexpected and rare exception (Jake E's voice bandwidth requiring special considerations far above and beyond what is reasonable for a producer to consider) which makes the album and abilities of the musicians come off as less than it might have been if by dumb luck they attempted to use a different mic for whatever reason. Cans produced the vocals and none of his producers figured it out either for him, which is too bad.
It really is a great album with some great musicians. I really love these songs. The recording session could have been better, but the (artistic aspect of) production and songwriting are indeed on that level of excellence some bands only get to briefly flirt with.
I believe I declared this my 2007 overall album of the year during the voting if memory serves.
