BravePicks 2020 - KIRK WINDSTEIN's Dream In Motion #28
December 4, 2020, 3 years ago
If there was any year that music was a true saviour, it was 2020. The ultimate diversion, as the world sits in virtual stagnation waiting anxiously for a fix. We will keep it brief here with the COVID commentary. Let’s let the music speak for itself. It is time to unveil our annual BravePicks countdown, where the devout scribes at BraveWords cast their votes at the hits and misses of the year! So who will be our #1? You’ll find out as we count down the BravePick Of 2020 each day in December!
Everybody has an opinion and it’s time for ours! And stay tuned in January for the writers’ individual Top 20s (new studio albums ONLY), Top 5 Brave Embarrassments (a fan favorite!), What/Who Needs To Stop In 2021? and Metal Predictions For 2021. Sadly no concerts. But all will be showcased come the New Year!
This virus can go to hell! Let’s let the Top 30 releases of 2020 rock your world!
BravePicks 2020
28) KIRK WINDSTEIN - Dream In Motion (Entertainment One)
Kirk Windstein’s foray into the solo world brought out another side of the bearded brute. The Crowbar frontman guided listeners on a journey towards the mellow with some psychedelic influences added into his signature doom metal sound. Dream In Motion is a peek into Windstein’s influences done in a warm manner and the man owns it, providing the vocals, guitars, and bass on the album.
As Windstein told scribe Aaron Small in a BraveWords feature: “Honestly, I listen to so many different styles of music. In fact, when I listen to heavy music, I listen to Motörhead, Judas Priest, Saxon, Twisted Sister. I’m not much on any of the new bands. I am old (54), but I guess I’m old school as well. For me, doing this, I listen to so much ‘70s soft rock, that this is heavily influenced by all of that. There’s a few Beatles things here and there… it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time; I felt I had to do it, and this was the time. I actually started it in June of 2017 and finished it up in July of 2019. No pressure – a song every couple of months. That was it.”
Delving into Kirk’s original lyrics on Dream In Motion, the listener doesn’t know specifically what is being sung about, but the words are easy to identify with; “Toxic” is a perfect example. It contains the line, ‘Your presence is toxic’, which is a situation everybody has unfortunately experienced at least once. “Well, to be honest, my wife, Robin, wrote the lyrics to ‘Toxic’. She’s written a lot for me in the last… it’s not that I’m running out of ideas or anything; she’s a great lyricist! That song in particular is about a certain person – who I can never reveal. Me, normally I don’t write stories. I write thoughts, feelings, emotions; and I write in metaphor. But ‘Toxic’ is Robin’s thing.”
BravePicks 2020 Top 30
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28) KIRK WINDSTEIN - Dream In Motion (Entertainment One)
29) VANDEN PLAS - The Ghost Xperiment: Illumination (Frontiers)
30) GREEN CARNATION - Leaves of Yesteryear (Season of Mist)
