Tunes of Dawn - Goodbye Cruel World

 “Tunes of Dawn”: could be one of the best albums to have crossed my ears this year – the year of 2010-. Perhaps, their massive experience has played a catalytic role in the creation of this album.

Obscurity, a Finnish music point of view, an integrant sound, magical keyboard parts flirting with psychedelic passages, romanticism, lyricism, musical colors, depression: all these comprise the album’s frame, plus, a voice concentrating many influences from Pete Steele to Cohen’s timbre (this retro/ melancholic one) serves the group an identity that, truly, can attract only words of kindness, concerning Hagen Schneevoig. Logically, when someone listens to the album, will immediately focus on “Upon My Grave”, the album’s most mainstream composition with many Finnish/ Him musical references but things are not that simple: everyone has the right to shape a song that will bring him a little bit closer to a wide audience. A beautiful song indeed, so not hasty, with the keyboards gently coloring its aesthetics, extracting a melancholic musical accent, which, along with the catchy riffage, end with the listener getting a bittersweet taste, whose option is one and only, that of admitting that the composition is merely wonderful - however there are 10 songs to come, that follow not this stylistic path. “A Warm Sigh At 6°C” could be the album’s most beautiful song, which leaves the listener no doubt space. A masterpiece song with such intense color, down-tempo, goth-romantic, which, however pessimistic it may be, in the end the listener remains with a sweet taste, in need of re-listening the song in order to grant his dose- the musical one.

Although the album’s opening track is quite harsh (“Suicide Challenge”), I can in no case classify them as a gothic/ metal band because there so many and different in between musical elements spottable that the “gothic rock” classification suits them more efficiently. And the second song, “Refuse, Resist” is also tough, with a velvet touch and the drumming being intense; a gothic composition perhaps, with the vocals getting more harsh when necessary and extracting this bittersweet aura at many points. In “Cupola” – a Zeromancer cover- they inject their own style, with this leading in a “Type O Negative” esque path- I liked it, but as far as concerning the covers, I am way too subjective for judging them. An amazing track follows, dark, aggressive enough, full of romanticism, pessimism and color with the singer’s performance lending the song an amazing tone, enriching it with eroticism and reaching at points, when he stands begging for forgiveness. The homonymous one comes up, featuring punk guitar aesthetics and the keyboards coloring the track with ‘80s character; some indie influences also surface. On “With The Moon Comes To An End”: an 8 mins opus, in which the band wills to show their musical worth, an amazing retro-based song, where intensity, passion, depressive forms and fearful concerns alternate with heavy metal soloing and guitars; a fantastic ambience is shaped. The album’s epilogue features two acoustic versions of old songs “Divine”, and “If I Die Today”.

An album of polymorphism, a diversiform, deeply melancholic release from a band seducing in each and every aspect, with Type O Negative, Katatonia, Anathema, Him references, and with their own unique style combining all these influences, creating a wonderful breed! Perhaps the best 2010 release in the Goth/ Rock scene- I totally recommend it.

P.S.: a 6/15 evaluation met my eye-the must be kidding me.!

tracklist:
Suicide Challenge
Refuse Resist
Upon My Grave
A Warm Sigh At 6C
Tonight’s Decision
Cupola
Little Darkness
Goodbye Cruel World
With The Moon Comes The End
Divine (Acoustic)
If I Die Today (Acoustic)

9/10  Kostas Sotiriou