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Dawn: Slaughtersun (crown of the triarchy)
06/03/12 || SwornToTheBlack
Dawn is a Swedish band currently made up of members from Cranium, Retaliation, Afflicted, and Dissection. They were more active in the mid-nineties, however, and their 1998 album “Slaughtersun (crown of the triarchy)” was the band’s — ahem — crowning achievement.
Dawn primarily play a very non-brutal, but still quite intense style of death metal that emphasizes tremoloed melodic riffs and constant blast beats accentuated with high pitched shrieking vocals. If you’re thinking that sounds a lot more like black metal, you’d be right in doing so, but it just isn’t. Strong comparisons can certainly be made to the likes of Immortal, but the overall impression doesn’t fit. Think blackened Amon Amarth and you’ll be on the right track. Battle atmosphere and folk melodies are the bread and butter of the composition.
The few times the intensity does lighten up are actually the highlights. “Falcula” features a particularly lofty segment that really kicks things up a notch. This comes about eight minutes into the ten-plus minute track after many repetitions of the same few riffs. It’s a good thing too, because things start to get a little dull by that point. This section really energizes the song and sets things up nicely to… go back into more of the same.
This is the overarching theme of “Slaughtersun (crown of the triarchy)”. To play along at home, pick a track from the album — doesn’t matter which one. Find a nice one? Here’s how it goes:
“[Insert optional, ancillary instrumental section] The intro riff gets off to a strong, rocking start. The catchiness really draws you in. The vocals enter, screaming boldly alienating, violent aphorisms at you. This is going to be a great song — you can feel it! A minor alteration of the chord progression shows some development that creates an interesting emotional hook. Okay, things are starting to slow down. It’s a bridge building up for great things. Finally, the change comes and – REPEAT!
“Okay, that’s a little bit disappointing, but there are a lot of lyrics, so you give them the time to say what they need to say. You know, more vaguely aloof words of despair. Cool, the guy’s a poet. You’ve always admired people who can write a lot. You’re back around again. Time to move on. Wait… WHY IS IT STARTING OVER AGAIN!?
“Eventually the song ends — probably abruptly and with no closure that distinguished the final reprise from the ones preceding it. Maybe it was a weak song? The others will be better. The album is an hour long, after all.” At this point you can go back to the beginning of this anecdote and read it over again. Do this a total of seven times and you will have a pretty good impression of the album. The rhythm and tempo don’t even change that much from track to track.
What’s most unfortunate about this aspect for the album as a whole is that the individual parts are actually quite well done. If there is something to be said about the quality of the musicianship, it’s that hearing the endless repetitions isn’t always a chore. If you’ve got something else to do while this is playing, you might actually enjoy it quite a bit, but any devoted, intent listening will almost certainly be quite tedious. If the album were fifteen or twenty minutes shorter it would be outstanding, but nearly all of the pleasure to be derived from the riffs is exhausted by the end of each song.
The band does a lot of things right on “Slaughtersun”. The songs are catchy, the vocals are fearsome, and the production is pretty tight. The experience is marred, however, by the wearying repetition that seldom leads to any payoff.
- Information
- Released: 1998
- Label: Necropolis Records
- Website: www.dawnband.com
- Band
- Henke Forss: vocals
- Andreas Fullmestad: guitars
- Fredrik Söderberg: guitars
- Lars Tängmark: bass
- Jocke Pettersson: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. The knell and the world
- 02. Falcula
- 03. To achieve the ancestral powers
- 04. Ride the wings of pestilence
- 05. The aphelion deserts
- 06. Stalker’s blessing
- 07. Malediction murder
