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Dawn of Dreams > Darklight Awakening > Reviews
Dawn of Dreams - Darklight Awakening

Dead By Dawn! - 75%

Sweetie, November 22nd, 2019

Very rarely do you come across a band whose sound is so impure due to large masses of genre-crossing, yet maintain a raw enough feeling to not sound overcooked. Let's rewind to the year 2000 for a hot second. Melodic death metal is pretty young, black metal is well beyond its second wave, and we're right in the midst of nu metal's reign. Yet Dawn Of Dreams, a band from Germany drops by and disappears before they can even make a mark. Darklight Awakening is the only full-length the band has to its name, but damn if it isn't a standout considering the time period and the way things are arranged.

Blackened death metal isn't a foreign concept. But how often can you really make it melodic without falling flat? Darklight Awakening builds its rails predominantly on tremolo riffing and speed-picked passages that pull right out of Emperor's handbook. But the way it's laid out jumps around so much more and manages to sharpen its hooks. Check out "Hell Below," as it's an onslaught of clicking drums and swept notes that cast a wavy feeling that one can easily move to. Yet, the death metal growls and harder production keep it threatening. For the most part, the melodic death metal injects itself into the instrumentation in bridges that gap the harsher kicks. "Eclipse" has a passage that I might even go as far as to say sounds quite beautiful.

Vocally you get a lot more than just growls. There are double tracks of lower and higher ones, and the occasional shriek that stands alone. I can't say there is much in the way of cleans, but the ending of opener "Dark Black Conscious" sneaks some in. Due to having so much going on and little in the way of production, the bass is all but absent. It also causes some messy entanglements here and there, and I would be lying if I said that there was a ton of variation. I get it, that's not always the point here, but it makes for an album that still requires a certain mood.

Dawn Of Dreams is supposedly still active, but they've never put anything out beyond Darklight Awakening. It was a weird time, it was an impressive hybrid of influences, and despite some of its drawbacks, this is a solid one-off disc. Anyone who likes a little bit of sugar in their black/death metal but hates when it's overcooked should lend their ears as soon as possible.

The BEST melodic death isn't completely death... - 92%

The_Ghoul, November 8th, 2005

This album is at first melodic death. Then some differences arise. The general feel of the album is more like black metal, actually. Minus a lot of the superficial features of the album, this is really melodic black death. Number one, there is a lot of tremolo picked chords (which are RARELY found in death metal) and also there are those requisite harmonized guitar lines. So far, so good.

The album has a sort of urgent feel to it, as opposed to the spacey coldness of most black metal albums, but lacks all the bad qualities of Gothenburg melodeath. This CD features inspired songwriting, and the vocals are, for once, NOT annoying. They are akin to most late 80's death metal bands and early nineties (like Cannibal Corpse) and aren't really new or original, but they don't sound bad or annoying. One thing that also differentiates this music from Gothenburg music is that the songwriting places general atmosphere over "wankerism", or technical lines that lack any sort of place and are there just for the sake of it. The lines in this CD are technical, but generally are not on display, and the point seems to be on the songwriting, which is never boring, and also takes a few listens to fully grasp it. The complexity of most songs is not obvious at first, and it's rather subtle, and it's clear this band took some time to write solid, complete songs. Not a bit of filler in this entire CD.

Now, it is clear this belongs in the camp of melodic death, but there is black metal influences. The songs often eschew the opportunity for lines that would accentuate the guitarist, and opt for a more unilateral, singular, approach to the music, also with the existence of very many atmospheric passages, coupled with an addiction to tremolo lines.

On its own merit, this CD owns. It's a bit hard to classify, but it's still a very worthwhile listen, and is much better than most melodeath bands.