Dawn

Production: Clear yet thin broth of melodic guitar and assorted high-end sounds. Bass is sublimated to a deep diffused mutter, and vocals are above it all like a winter moon, far and contrasting bright.

Review: Dawn bend death metal patterns into motion rock with melody building a basis for composition. Flowing streams of chords are twisted and modulated for repetition, then processed through a general filter which uses melody to synchronize strumming rhythms for songwriting cohesion.

Methods such as these have been applied before in better ways but the fusion is interesting here in that unlike most death metal bands, it tries not to break its pace except for interludes like old style metal bands. For all of the aggression and high-speed impatience of this music there is melodic music crafted with small intricacies in the center of these stalky, supportive riffs. Classical influences are aesthetic only but give a slightly majestic edge to the space-rock influence in this music.

At the structural core here is death metal, with the running pulse-highhat rhythms of black metal integrated into the running phrases. Guitars are sharp and melodic, playing precisely the single notes and modified chord progressions that build these relevances. Over it all high shrieking vocals score out a pattern of relentless verbal assault, as if reminding the listener of the dark side of beauty: it must end in death.

In that spirit each song is careful to self-destruct into semiotic granules, often leaving only a void of negative space in which the romantic ends of these melodies and dark neo-suicidal philosophies can come together. Predictable variations on the 8-tone ring of power chords serve as foundation for several of these songs and there are throwaway rhythm techniques that seem oddly incongruous within each tune, such as crunchy triads thundering phrases to a stop, like a garage death metal band, but most of this music is professionally executed and generally interesting, although best perceived as an ongoing rhythmic process.

The epic, solemn, and melancholy nature these songs target seems distant from the more subtly dark nature of music detached from the normal sounds of mainstream music yet given the simplicity to reveal shared elements in numerical detail. Like much of this genre the conclusive mapping of the music is best sorted out in the atmosphere created by rhythms and overlapping harmonies, given a life in the fingerprints of each song brought forth in riff or melody. In this space the details belabored here gain a new importance as elements of contrast, and the music as a form of beauty in resistant anger gains a new abstract presence.