Abysmal Dawn - From Ashes
Crash Music

file under Death metal

Menno: And again I'm about to listen to a completely unknown band. This time the American Abysmal Dawn gets the honour. Their debut 'From Ashes' has been out there for a while and gave the band a nice opportunity to break out the local underground scene. After the deal with the Crash Music label they've been sent on tour with Six Feet Under and Krisiun. These bands aren't the smallest, and I open my ears with much curiosity. What I hear can't be called bad. The record starts of with 'Impending Doom', an instrumental clocking just over one and a half minutes, which is just long enough for an instrumental. With exception of some old Metallica, I personally hate long, boring songs without structure. Abysmal Dawn is clearly influenced by bands as Nile and Behemoth, but it has to be said that this is just a tad less extreme.

The solid melodic death metal is nice the listen to. The term melodic might be a bit confusing. Let's make things clear; with melodic I mean music in the direction of Fleshcrawl rather than the relatively soft death from Opeth for example. A nice, deep grunt and solid scream (comparable to Johan Hegg) by the singer/guitarist Charles Elliott are working out perfectly and make the music a bit more brutal. The band isn't afraid to add guitar solos, something I can get positive about at all times. With this, the musicians give proof of their technical capabilities, which is extremely positive, especially for Elliot, clearly a multi talented man. A lot of harmonic guitars and great, lifting drums make sure all sounds nicely, together with the nice, unpolished production of course. All the songs take just around 4 minutes and keep the attention where it should be.

They could use a more personal touch though, but nowadays that's something very hard to achieve. As long as they keep doing what they're good at and keep having fun doing it, I can't see why Abysmal Dawn wouldn't be offered a chance by Metal Blade or Nuclear Blast for example. With 'From Ashes' they've made me curious, and I'm wondering how long it would take until they are getting sent to Europe to spread the word. Good job!


Rating: 75/100 (details)

http://www.abysmaldawn.com

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