Here Comes the Flood

Here Comes the Flood, released in August 2001, is Dreamtide's debut, built on flowing guitar and wide-opening choruses. Helge Engelke had started the band the year before in Hannover, Germany. Fair Warning's guitarist and writer, he had no intention of depending on one band alone: what do you do with songs that will never quite fit the main outfit? You start another band. Fair Warning had just gone on hiatus after 2000's Four. Those who gathered were singer Olaf Senkbeil, Fair Warning's original drummer C.C. Behrens, keyboardist Torsten Lüderwaldt and bassist Ole Hempelmann — three of the five from the Fair Warning circle. The songs keep hard rock's weight while delivering pop melody clearly, and the technical playing dissolves naturally into the writing, so a listener receives the singing and the hooks first. Thirteen songs, sixty-five minutes. Rock Hard gave it 7.5. A record that speaks plainly to any ear that loves 1980s-style melodic rock. Senkbeil came from Jacks Hammer and has sung backing vocals for Saxon and Blind Guardian.