Nostalgia! Listening to Death By Dawn reminds me at once of the old Dutch death metal bands Pestilence and Asphyx. This is not really because of the guitar-riffs or song structures as much as by the unique vocals. Not surprising the DBD front man is no-one other than Martin van Drunen!

At the age of 21 Martin joined Pestilence and recorded Malleus Malificarum (1988) and Consuming Impulse (1989); with Asphyx the albums The Rack (1991), Crush The Cenotaph (1992) and Last One On Earth (1992). After this he did the guest vocals on the Comecon album Converging Conspiracies (Swedish death metal, 1993). He formed the Dutch heavy metal band Submission in 1994 and did the vocals on their first demo. This band didn’t last too long, it split-up already in 1995. Martin did live vocals for mighty Bolt Thrower in 1995. What happened after that is totally unknown to me, though he joined Death By Dawn in 2003. Perhaps he was just totally fed up with the music industry and did not want to participate these many years. His rise proves once again that Dutch death metal isn’t dead yet! (Also listen to Pentacle, an unclean heritage of Asphyx!).

Van Drunen does not operate from his own territory (though still living in Oldenzaal): DBD was formed in 2001 in Aachen, Germany. Though most other band members hail from Germany, the band’s founder Pippo Colapinto is an Italian maniac fleeing from the Law of his birth ground. Dedicated to (death) metal and having played in Italian metal bands Ossian and Sacral Death (bands totally unknown to me), he wished to continue his drum-massacre in his new home country Germany. The other band members are the result of some line-up changes and are quite new in the band. Jens and Ingo are both handling the guitars since 2004 and Stefan plays bass since 2005. Somehow, this band’s music gives its name credit. With ‘death by dawn’, the ongoing routine of life is meant.

Each day you go to work, you switch off your brain and continue your job as a mindless drone and die a little more [die a little later???!!]. The music really gives you some of these feelings, and the urge to fight against it. Perhaps the reason for this are the rock and roll and punk influences, and also the suffering vocals fit perfect in the bands lyrical theme. The songs deal with the commercial, profit-based system, divorces, getting fired, fucked-up politics, etc. No real reasons to live. With that an atmosphere arises of a warm smoky bar amidst a rainy town, drinking cheap beer to forget daily hell, vaguely getting to know what is important in life. The sound of Death By Dawn is somewhat raw and primitive, not polished and clean. This ‘garage’ death metal highly stimulates the above described feelings. Though the music is overall fast, raw and guitar solo infested, certain parts are slow and despairing. It is also great to hear some drum-accompanied bass solos. I think Martin’s vocals fit perfect to the lyrical concept, perhaps even better than with his older bands. Technically, the music has great song structures, is very well played and has some interesting pace-shifts.

In June the band convinced me as a good live band, I enjoyed their gig in the ‘Burgerweeshuis’ (Deventer, the Netherlands, 27-06-06), together with Obituary, very much. Though most of the crowd wasn’t too enthusiastic, they did well as a warming-up act. In my opinion this was mainly because off the low sound volume, which was turned up when it was Obituary’s turn to play, probably to enlarge the contrast which made Obituary sound even more brutal.

To me Death By Dwan is not really a milestone, but moreso a great dedication to the early death metal era! And now, I really want to know what loony tune is played at the end of the album!!!