Dreams Of Sanity, the band supporting that exceptional singer Sandra Schleret, songwriter Christian Marx, Fredéric Heil, Andreas Wildauer and Michael Knoflach, the concept and lyrics writer, following their interpretations of "The Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri and "The Phantom of the Opera " by Gaston Leroux, have now produced a concept of their own, which deals with the game of life.

The concept, which is dealt with on several different levels, begins ("The creature that you came to see") by placing the protagonist in front of the curtain on a stage ("...Time to set the stones..." - like a stone placed at the start of a game) and announcing to the audience that he now has to perform his life. This game is repeated every evening and serves to satisfy the voyeuristic tendencies of the audience. Accompanied and supported musically with feeling by Sandra Schleret's multi-facetted voice, the creature now begins to recount key excerpts from his life with the aid of delicate and almost progressive arrangements. After the loss of the warmth, peace and security in the mother's womb, ("The beginning that lies"), there follows an unhappy love affair - perhaps only dreamed, perhaps real ("The empress - Through the looking glass - A dream").

The story reaches a musical climax in a ballad ("A window to the sky"), in which the protagonist decides against taking his own life, and then tries to start all over again ("And so on"), but finally dies ("We.ll.sea"), which represents at the same time a review of his life. The creature now leaves the stage ("The creature that you came to see - reprise"), to assure the audience that he will relive the pain when the next performance takes place. In this way the listener is directly involved in what's going on, because whenever the CD is listened to again, the protagonist will again be placed on the stage.

The idea of the "The Game" album is to take away the listener's passive involvement as a pure consumer. Because much of what one sees on television, reads in the newspaper or listens to on a CD is not really designed as pure entertainment. There is much sorrow in the story that has been told that does not go away when the remote control button is pressed... or is it all just a game?

As on their previous album, Dreams Of Sanity have remained faithful to their elements of style, using them to create a polished production and complex song structures, which make superficial consumption of this album impossible. The more often one places the protagonist on stage, the deeper are the insights into the story of his life...