Next step for Hanging Garden!
In 2026, the project led by American multi-instrumentalist Dylan Cruz (Scumbag, Dissonance, ex-Noxis) signed with Transcending Obscurity Records for the release of its second album, Dream Death.
Right from the very start of Arete, the album’s opening track, the musician takes great delight in creating an aggressively jagged sound that assaults our eardrums while he lets loose on his instruments, blending excellent technical mastery with furious, staccato touches. There’s a brief lull in the clean tones, but the onslaught resumes with renewed vigor, leading into a first solo that starts off relatively pleasant but eventually merges with the surrounding chaos before giving way to the second, and finally exploding upon reaching Ondine, the next track, whose influences seem relatively similar and which also displays all its madness by regularly erupting into fury. The riffs follow one another but are never the same, sometimes offering unexpected melodic touches between waves of rage, but Dreamwoven takes over without pause, displaying distinct Brutal Death traces, especially in vocals while the rhythmic foundation becomes more mechanical and monotonous. The track is quite long, but it gives us no respite, stringing together patterns each more aggressive than the last, and even the more ethereal passages take on an unsettling quality amid the musician’s roars as he abruptly shifts to Carambola, where riffs clash amid soothing harmonics that rival the furious double pedal. Once again, the notion of respite is undermined, because even if certain passages are slightly less intense, extreme and constant saturation reigns supreme, leaving us no choice but to be dragged along by the runaway machine all the way to the final, where we can finally catch our breath for a moment before diving headfirst into Endymion, the shortest track, which offers a few epic sounds before returning to rage while maintaining this highly technical approach. We move on to Tears of Lustful, Secret Desire, which stands out as a blend of the most melodious tones and the usual uncontrollable violence, but the artist brilliantly manages to navigate between these two extremes while maintaining that explosive energy, before moving on to Suffering Radiant Memories, an instrumental track with a soothing introduction that doesn’t hesitate to launch into grand, lead-heavy passages, adding an intoxicating Prog touch to close out the album.
If you’re not familiar with Hanging Garden, get ready for a musical wake-up call paired with abrasive distortion! Dream Death has it all, whether in terms of violence, creativity, or intensity.
90/100