Dreadnought
Measure of Man

Dreadnought is a highly successful German band who has managed to remain hidden from view despite their successes that speaks for themselves: “After they were chosen as the Potsdam's Best Newcomer, Dreadnought played many of their best gigs to date – including a legendary performance at the Rock in Caputh Festival 2009 and a headlining show at the Tempodrom, Berlin – with Germany's Star Search Winner Martin Kesici supporting.” that is quoted from the only site that seems linked to this band, these are all these success that speaks for itself according to their biography on Reverbnation. And they are unique, or so they claim. I think it is a good accomplishment for such a highly successful band to remain so anonymous as they have done, none of the metal encyclopaedias that I use for finding info on bands and records list them, you have to look for a long time to find their official Reverbnation page which by the way is the only official page I have found and the Reverbnation page does not link to any other site either. The promotion agency has no biography or info on the release just a list of songs, not even the band members and the label is impossible to find as well. Funny how a successful band can manage to be so anonymous, four reviews I found three were in German and one in English. But enough about success stories now, lets have a look at the product.

I would not say that they are unique, it is very easy to pinpoint their inspirations or at least several bands that sounds as they might have inspired them. I would however grant you that they do not sound as copies either, they have a style that is somewhat their own but they do still confine themselves to sounding rather typical. Nothing negative in that perhaps, the album is fairly well produced albeit I have no idea by whom or where, I cannot even say if it is a debut or not as it seems impossible to find a discography for the band. But if it is a debut I would say that it is a very mature one. The music is fairly varied over the ten tracks, this might be thanks to the varied vocal stylings ranging from the regular singing all the way to quite mean growly singing. The music also varies from quite heavy to rather soft at times, it does so with a rather constant and smooth flow.

Is it any good then? Well, sure it is. It has a good feel to it, lots of energy and a touch of power as well. I think that the songs all hold up to a good standard and nothing really dips below an acceptable level, it also manages to keep my attention for the fifty minutes it plays which has to be said to be a good note. There is however nothing really spectacular about it either, the first song Syren is very good and so is the seventh Left for Dead but overall it is quite average seen in the bigger picture. There is just nothing about Dreadnought that really stands out, they sound more or less like anything else. The vocals are average, the songs are average, the production is average, the highs and lows of the album aren’t peaking in any direction and overall the feeling is that this album is about as good as the genre in general and that it is in every conceivable way an unspectacular album. A good album, but unspectacular nonetheless.

So in the end they can talk the talk but seems to have a little harder time walking the walk, their Measure of Man is a good album but it has no standout moments and there just is so much in the genre already that this adds nothing new or exciting whatsoever. We should not diss it though as it is well made and it is a good listen but in the end no matter the previous success, that I cannot really confirm or deny, this is an album that is just average. You play it and think: “alright this is good” and then you move on to the next album in the ever growing pile of albums to review.