From Bandcamp, “MAGNADUR’s latest album, “Beautiful Nightmare,” marks a significant evolution in their music journey, offering listeners a deeply personal and immersive experience. Tomi Perrakoski has pushed the boundaries of traditional metal storytelling with Beautiful Nightmare. Each song takes the audience on a journey through vivid landscapes of emotion and imagination. The personal nature of the album is palpable, with themes that resonate on a universal scale yet remain deeply intimate. One of the standout features of “Beautiful Nightmare” is its seamless blending of genres.  The album not only showcases the technical prowess of the band, but also highlights the emotional depth and creativity of their music. It's an album that demands attention and offers rewards with each listen.”

The album has ten songs, and “Kimono” is first. It sounds like a creepy little doll is taking in the dark at first, and strings carry it forward, but it is quickly followed by some of the most evil vocals you have ever heard in your life, and aggressive and punishing guitars. It shifts to electronic, then back. A blending of genres indeed. “Hunted Dreams” is next, and the horrid vocals continue, but it’s hard to get my bearings here. Piano comes in, and relaxes you, but the vocals create tension. What a play of contrasting sounds here. “Misunderstood” uses a good deal of melody in the sound, although it is somber, and in come the horrid vocals and guitars once more. “Sad Eyes” has a beautiful backdrop, but it is blackened with the vocals. Switching quickly to electronics, you get only a taste of those melodies.

The title track plays with gentle tones at first but they are again hardened immediately. It’s almost like blown glass. At first, it is pliable, but as it cools, it hardens quickly and you only have a short window of time to mold it to your liking. “Family” is the longest, at over four minutes. It might be a reflection of the family that the composer came from, and as the old saying goes, they are complicated, as is the song. “Mandatory Rest” presents the horror so matter-of-factly, you question if it even from this world. “Alien Inside” closes the album, and the title sums up a lot of this music pretty well. This is indeed an uncommon listening experience.

The songs are all pretty short, but they are packed to the gills. The visual that I get when I listen to the album is children frolicking in a playground for the afternoon, while dark and ominous figures dart in and out and commit murders in broad daylight. The contrasts are so sharp that they don’t make sense at first, but taking in the album as a whole, you can appreciate the central themes, as well as Tomi’s uncompromising creativity and vision.