Golden Lake Productions from Scotland offers us a new release on their label. Apart from being a label, they also publish a magazine and run a mailorder. You’d think that the people should recognize good music when they hear it. Another release of Golden Lake, Luna Ad Noctum was decent but not very original. This release however is a lot more difficult to categorize.

I don’t know if this is unorthodox original black metal meets progressive (death)metal or weak black metal with commercial elements in its sound. As I listened to The Dawn I sometimes thought of option one, yet another time I definitely knew it had to be option two. Take for example the clean vocals of singer Federico: At one time, I thought his singing was terrible, a very thick Italian accent and too melodramatic. Next time I listened his voice was just right, full of emotion and fitting to the music. The same goes for the rest of the music: The screams are sometimes weak and sometimes very strong.

The guitars can be both annoying and effective, and so on.

The only thing I know for sure is that I prefer their new material over their older work. The first three tracks of The Dawn are from their second demo Valholl and are weaker than the new songs, which are heading into a thrashier, progressive death metal direction instead of melodic black metal with a heavy emphasis on keyboards. The band describes the newer tracks as a combination of Dark Tranquillity and Borknagar, although I would also include Dismal Euphony. It’s a strange move from Golden Lake to begin this album with old demo tracks, these should have been at the end as bonus tracks or not on the album at all. Now it’s sort of a false start to an otherwise interesting cd.

I still don’t know what to think of this album but the newer tracks convinced me to give these Italians a chance and you should also.