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Before the Dawn > Soundscape of Silence > Reviews
Before the Dawn - Soundscape of Silence

Viisi - 66%

OzzyApu, May 9th, 2013

Soundscape Of Silence is a release that needs to be taken as a full album. It doesn’t have the rousing standouts like Deadlight, opting more for a flowing, organized body with the same cross of Dark Tranquillity and then some. Production is still ripe with this one. It’s mixed well with the plastering bass, concentrated riffs, and hoarser harsh vocals from Saukkonen. His vocals have been a mainstay of the band without much character of their own, but they work way better than Eikind’s cleans. He ditched his slower delivery in order to sound more distinct and ample, but his voice isn’t the kind that pulls it off well. Even on the uplifting “Hide Me,” the leads are what carry the song’s positive tone like an enriching Insomnium melody, not Eikind. His one convincing act is on “Monsters” where his sullen delivery transitions well between the sharp guitar floods.

By this point, Eikind’s usefulness had become overplayed and overused. His inclusion in many of these songs don’t help, forgetting the atmosphere they once enhanced on The Ghost while doing nothing that the lead guitars themselves aren’t capable of doing on their own. Songs like “Exile” and “Dying Sun” are cool. However, those songs include Eikind bringing them down with his now-often awkward clean singing adding melodrama, not melancholy, to the songs. This becomes a major problem on Deathstar Rising, and here it’s already something that steers these songs in the wrong direction.

What’s lacking is decisiveness, even if all the elements are in the right places. The hammering drums, the blubbery bass, the sprawling guitars, and the leads are vivacious, but something feels stripped. I point to each song’s lucidity, but it isn’t something that dismantles the album’s merit or Before The Dawn’s demonstration. In fact, I’d argue that the album gets better during the latter half. Listening to the first few songs, there’s never a lot of payoff – hence the lack of decisiveness. With “Monsters” and “Cold,” the band finds that twist of leads and riffs along with a focused direction to hit with effective catchiness. This is pushed to the finale, “Last Song,” which is one of my favorite songs by this band. Much like “Closure” on Rise Of The Phoenix, this closer builds from a quiet, somber introduction to a blaze of despondency and poignant harmonies perfectly fashioned by the guitars – no Eikind and no melodrama.

This was the first Before The Dawn album I heard and certainly not my first or second pick. It’s where Saukkonen really starts to fail with Eikind, losing that application between his sidekicks for an album that grows without significant reckoning. This one’s odd referral to the first two albums’ deeper commitment and mainstay of the newer, showy melodic death makes this one less likeable in the long run.