CARNIVAL OF DREAMS
LABYRINTH
ALBUM HIMMELPFORTEN RELEASE: FEBRUARY 11, 2002 REVIEW: MARCH 4, 2002

I sincerely wish Jens Gräbedünkel and Daniel Trautwein in Carnival of Dreams would have had the German vocals throughout all of "Labyrinth". Not that they make fools of themselves in the tracks sung in English, in fact, they do that better than many other German bands. But the German vocal tracks are significantly better.
The single "Dreidimensional" is on the album, and the elements of this particular track show what the trio does best. Beat driven, moody electropop through a shimmer of sadness and pompousness with a gothic touch and several memorable choruses.
"Labyrinth" is an album with few fiascos, but it also lacks masterpieces. The male vocals deserve an extra plus, though, due to the high degree of emotional expression, as does the beautiful female voice of Susanne Adler (from Emergenz) that appears on some of the songs.
Carnival of Dreams is a solid band and "Labyrinth" mixes club excursions, ballads, instrumentals and even a cover or two. The re-work of F R David's "Words" is amusing, but nowhere near the original. Still, "Labyrinth" holds enough good tracks to reach well above the average electropop band.

NIKLAS FORSBERG