Traveling After Midnight is the debut album from the Polish dup Dream System, who we discovered through their label Foreshadow, the same label that recently released the new Nadja CD Corrasion (listed elsewhere in this week's store update). Aruzz, the main guy behind Foreshadow and fellow fanatic for all things weird, heavy, and experimental, told us to check out Dream System, describing them as a kind of avant-electronic-metal outfit, which certainly sounded right up our alley. Traveling After Midnight, which was first released in 2005, is definitely a strange proposition, offering up a dark and frequently surreal mashup of aqueous trip-hop, dark drum'n'bass, and crushing metallic guitars a la Godflesh. The electronica and D&B elements are most prominent, with most of the tracks layering processed female crooning and dramatic, somewhat Gothy male vocals over glitchy, abstract electronica, threatening synthesizer pulses, sound collages crafted from sampled newscast recordings, and pounding programmed beats. But on tracks like "Pure Morning Light In Memories Of The Days", Dream System tightly wind jagged Meshuggah-ish riffage and effective downcast gloompop vocals around a brutal jungle beat, and the result is pretty killer. "One Of Many Others" sounds like Justin Broadrick bulldozing over a minimalist techno/sample soundscape with a crushing, bass-heavy riff that has been looped over onto itself. When Dream System really let loose and splatter all of these elements together, it starts to resemble a mutant fusion of Portishead, Massive Attack, Ulver, and Godflesh; it's all really catchy and enjoyable, even if the clean, Gothy male vocals tend to get a little melodramatic at times, and if you've been digging the recent releases from Manes and Dodheismgard as much as we have, you might want to check this out.