Hailing from Glendale, Arizona, Darkness Before Dawn releases their debut-album. At first you think that the band is an average death combo with influences from black metal and metalcore. But listening closer I have to conclude that they are more interesting than a lot of their colleagues.
Ingredients such as grunts, shrieks and aggressive vocals in combination with metalcore, death and black are there indeed, but they manage to make the music more interesting by introducing some symphonic parts; a lot of the songs have a nice layer of atmospheric keyboards. This addition lifts them just above the average overwhelming mediocrity. This sees to it that the band sounds more melodic and they do themselves a big favour; it gives them more reason for existence.
Don't get the idea that they sound whimpy because of the keyboards, no far from that. They are as extreme and aggressive as you normal metal band, they just sound more interesting. Fans of Dethklok, Behemoth, Abigail Williams, In Flames and The Black Dahlia Murder will all find something interesting on this record, that's what the infosheet says. I am not going to argue about that and I think they probably will be right. I could add some other bands too, but in general I think that fans of symphonic black metal, death metal and metalcore all can find something worth listening to. There are many worse records to spend your money on this month than this one.
