Be it directed inward, poured outward, or launched toward the star-pocked unknown whatever conversation is offered by United States/Canada-based atmospheric doom/progressive metal duo DREAM UNENDING steadily reveals itself as everflowing despite the years between. As the band’s discography begins to ebb together, pooling in collective expression and rising toward is own unearthly connectivity in broadening descent what it carries down the mountain amounts to less a glom of detritus and moreso a becoming, a transformation which increasingly trades extremity for spiritual-emotional symposium. An oddly infectious form of communal solace emerges on their third pass as ‘Certain Uncertainties‘ mills over personal quandary as often as it stares glassy-eyed at the wonderment available to silent observance. The patient-eared will find a third staged form of surrealistic extremity from these masters of atmospheric soul-craft but the space between thunderous movements digs deeper, further from foreboding nihil as possible.

In a house full of bookshelves randomly pulling A Separate Reality by Carlos Castaneda and trying to figure out what any of it meant was a formative experience on my part, taking me from vexation and doubt ’til eventually reasoning that the author was searching through his process (however credible the result actually was.) Gaining personal knowledge from such fixated authorship and emitting one’s own surrealistic creative-spiritual aura in the process is how I’d characterize the authorship of Dream Unending wherein some manner of search for higher meaning guides their crystal ship sans any script beyond the collaboration at hand, no egotism pushing the flow of their work beyond the voice which has arisen over the years. Rather than revisit things I’d already said about their past work for the sake of a biographical recourse I’d suggest their debut (‘Tide Turns Eternal‘, 2021) as a singular act with clear inspiration as foundation, a jumping off point which shattered any self-imposed limits going forward. On their less linearly cut follow-up (‘Song of Salvation‘, 2022) the captivity of death/doom’s low mood and dramatic fixation sloughed off some of their despairing motion toward curiosities, a search that’d included a huge leap in skill informing a then wandering hand.

‘Certain Uncertainties‘ fully emerges from the cavernous spaces of the past yet Dream Unending find no sun or shelter in their third chapter, only a nighttime glimmer in extension of the backdrop of the previous album, wandering without hurry through the warming stretch it becomes. The duo’s exploration of progressive rock and jazz fusion (or nearby) informed lead guitar driven delve continues beyond what might’ve appeared avant-garde in nature on ‘Song of Salvation‘ but in this context feels entirely normative in its slow waltzing passage where virtuosic intimacy is only occasionally broken in bemuse by the tension and intensity of extreme death/doom metal. Few predictive cues as to when the DeTore‘s immense vocal roar might find Dream Unending overcome with emotion are given, though opener “Blinding Allure” and later on “Strained Sincerity” each get there quickly with the latter piece leaning into doom heaviest. This is probably where the evolution beyond the previous album is most readily apparent but the sandwich those songs form around the title track (“Certain Uncertainties”) signal the greatest point of evolution herein.

“Certain Uncertainties” is essentially an interlude, a guitar driven instrumental befit for a sleepier noir virtuoso album and the same goes for the slightly more upbeat “Rubato”, which kicks off Side B. Without vocals guiding their passage these were oddly more disruptive to the the proggy, slow-churned roar surrounding them almost appearing off subject entirely on first pass. This voice becomes its own spectacle to some degree on repeat listens where the continued fostering of Vella‘s dedication to guitar skill increasingly aims for feeling and less for stream of consciousness guided note wrangling. Granted “Blinding Allure” just as well brings this into full view, shifting the initial dark and dramatic moodiness of the piece toward a joyous and dramatic swing. To call it easy listening would impose a numbness upon the average extreme metal listener, rather these are sounds one’d typically associate with technique obsessed solo artists and in some sense Dream Unending are purposing that guitar vernacular into unheard of territory.

The spongier doom riffs and nigh surf-ready guitar tones deployed within parts of “Strained Sincerity” offer some of my favorite details on the full listen, a fine point to suggest Dream Unending have refined their general approach to sound design and tonal choices since 2021 but the general effect of their heaviest moments still call back to that original locus to some degree. By peeling back the actual layering, the number of voices crashing around, their work helps to pull their signature out of cacophony while still retaining some of the ideas introduced on the second album. The appearance of by Brendan Radigan (Sumerlands, ex-Magic Circle, et al.) on “I Carry Your Burden” echoes the successes Phil Swanson‘s similar guest spot on “Secret Grief”, for example, offering a dramatic high for Side B while calling on precedence for continuity. As ‘Certain Uncertainties‘ addresses discomfort with its own unbridled change it yet offers linkage to familiarity in increasingly subtle ways.

As an endpoint the ~11 minute closure offered by “Causal” matches and then extends the fusion available to “Blinding Allure” where proggy slow-shred excursion turns to bending and warping doomed step. By the end of the piece the two voices are mashed into one with Vella‘s guitar phrasing and DeTore‘s roars finding their rocking crescendo threatening to detangle but somehow finding a bizarre point of cohabitation (again) in the context of progressive rock run-on bleed of phrase and the stoic growl n’ plod behind it, a strange beast which’d taken several passes to begin to read. I’m not sure I was left with an inkling where they’ll flow with it next, at all, but there was no question I’d been listening to Dream Unending as there is very little I could compare the experience with.

No longer feeling their way through the dark Dream Unending impress greater resolve within, and as a result of, the stretch that is ‘Certain Uncertainties‘ where a greater sense for identity accumulates as backing for their search rather than acting as the subject of it. Though every element of this release compounds beyond the last it’d be fair to accuse them of avoiding excesses for the sake of readable containment, begging for a huge double LP’s worth of ideas which’re obviously set to flow into endlessly jammed throughways. It all ultimately comes together after a number of unbroken listening sessions but their work always leaves me with the sense that they’re already going somewhere else with it, looking ahead all the time. A very high recommendation.

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