I don't know why, but every time I see the word Sweden on a promo CD I am almost sure that I will have to face one more IN FLAMES/AT THE GATES copycat. Yeah, you guessed right. Wicked Dream has the word Sweden on it, but it has only a sight relationship with the above mentioned bands. Sweden has definitely many things to offer. The only thing that's left is that the bands have to understand that they need to do their own thing and avoid copying already successful musical recipes.

The Swedish Metal outfit ASSAILANT was formed in 2004 and had to wait for only one year to release its demo CD Mental State. The band's work attracted the attention of the German label Dockyard 1 (NECROMANTIA, IRON SAVIOR), something which resulted in a contract and the release of the band's debut album Nemesis Within. Two years later after the release of their debut album, the Swedish metallers return with their sophomore full-length work, trying to prove that they are not the average Metal band.

I would like to start this review with an interesting fact. The band's guitar player Oskar is the little brother of Emil Norberg (PERSUADER, SAVAGE CIRCUS) and Nils Norberg (NOCTURNAL RITES). This definitely shows that little Oskar could not escape his Power Metal family and contributed to the songwriting making the whole thing sound more melodic than these melodic Death Metal wannabes had expected!

In fact, the band's sound is closer to the Power Metal scene than the melodic Death Metal one. They are something like the Danish metallers MERCENARY,  a band that started out as a melodic Death Metal/Metalcore outfit and ended up sounding powered enough. So, the good thing about these guys is that they have managed to escape the IN FLAMES syndrome and present something much better and personal. ASSAILANT manage to mix different elements like Gothenburg's NWOSDM scene with EVERGREY's Prog/Power Metal diversity and the NOCTURNAL RITES Heavy/Power assault. The album has many elements like its really good guitar work and the nice melodies that are produced by Sandstrom's keyboards that make it heavy as fuck, and its solid as a rock rhythm section definitely improves the band's attempts. The atmosphere is also one thing that varies, since ASSAILANT are able to adapt to every moment offering dreamy, as well as aggressive feelings to the listener.

The production is also really nice, although I didn't manage to find who is responsible for this good sound quality. So, the album offers great melodies (see the video for A Day Tomorrow below), combined with aggression that mixes melodic Death and Thrash elements along with some Progressive breaks. Except from the band's raw side, you can also find the great ballad Eternal, a song that creates a really melancholic and pessimistic atmosphere with Sundqvist screaming ...nothing lasts forever... and the rest of the band taking the credit for a more than great arrangement of the song. I think that ASSAILANT have shown some more than good signs of talent and I believe that we will see some great stuff from them in the near future.