Before The Dawn – Rise Of The Phoenix

In a short period of time, we have another release from the Finnish melodic death metalers. “Deathstar Rising” was pretty a usual Before The Dawn record, with classic music compositions and a lot of work on sound production. Now, “Rise Of The Phoenix” is a completely different album, a return to the band’s roots I’d say, with clear death metal attitude this time. Lars Eikind is now a past member of the band and without his clean vocal singing, the Finnish lost their gothic metal trait and moved into pure melodic death metal paths.

Maybe Before The Dawn changed their style, but in no way “Rise Of The Phoenix” is a bad album. Yes, I understand the big disappointment of those who love the previous Before The Dawn albums with the clean vocals, I am one of them too, but we have to take off the blinkers and reconsider the compositional stuff. For example, why a song like “Pitch-Black Universe” should be a mediocre track? Really people, it’s hard to find such a melodic death metal song with the guitar melodies so tied with the blastbeats. Equally good is “Phoenix Rising”. It was released a little before the official album, so there are no excuses for negative reactions because of the dominance of the harsh vocals. Once again, there is a great alternation of melodies (where I loved the middle parts exclusively) and the drum kit is on fire. On the other hand “Cross To Bear” passed almost unnoticed, despite that it’s a little thrashy and groovy.

The Finnish bands really have the skill on melodic death metal style and Before The Dawn prove it easily. “Throne Of Ice” may be one of the best songs by the band and a great melodic death hymn. From the beginning with this awesome arpegio and the catatonic melody, the fast distorted riffs in the verse, until the stunning melodies in the refrain, the tremolo pickings and the melancholic solo, it’s difficult to find something negative to complain in this song and you must be too malicious to do that. And of course I should mention the epic lyrics that Tuomas wrote for “Throne Of Ice”. “Perfect Storm” reminded me a lot of the previous stuff and specifically the compositions of my favorite “Deadlight”, so it didn’t leave me disappointed. Another absolute majestic melodic death song is “Fallen World”, where the riffs hammer you hard in your face and at the same time, the melodies come as a healing. In such songs, I honestly don’t know if the clean vocals are fitting in. Next on the list is “Eclipse” which is generally a classic Before The Dawn song, raw and melodic and so does the final track, “Closure”.

Well, “Rise Of The Phoenix” is something refreshing for sure. No one can deny that Tuomas Saukkonen is a great music composer and he doesn’t have to prove this. The seventh Before The Dawn record is easily added in their Hall Of Fame. On one side we have a pure epic melodic death metal album, and on the other side there aren’t those lyrical vocals of the past albums that made us fell in love with the band. At least “Rise Of The Phoenix” stood worthy for the band’s name, but I’m very curious how they will present their older stuff in live shows. Besides, their history should not and can’t be forgotten.