Dawn of Relic
Night On Earth
6.3
I’ve only ever heard One Night in Carcosa from this Finnish stunningly average melodic death/black metal band, and when you take into account the amazing melodic death metal coming from Finland (i.e. Mors Principium Est, Kalmah, etc), Dawn of Relic only seem to further their mediocrity.
Playing a safe sort of keyboard laced metal that sits squarely between the atmospherics of black metal and the predictable gait of Gothenburg metal, Dawn of Relic are annoyingly talented and frustratingly safe with their music; everything sounds great (Tico-Tico studios), is played well and has a few spectacular moments, but otherwise, Night on Earth is a pretty standard melodic death metal affair. They are a purely second tier act along the lines of Solar Dawn, The Duskfall (whose Kai Jaakkola performs vocals on this album), Centinex, Enforsaken, Infliction, Fragments of Unbecoming, Withering Surface and umpteen other bands, which translates into competent but forgettable.
The mediocrity starts with the ho-hum instrumental intro “Evenfall”, what a surprise. That then segues into the mid pace lurch of “Serpent Tongues” and its generic slow fast gait. Now, “September and the One” gave me a brief glimmer of hope for this album to rise above average with a pretty impressive Omnium Gatherum like gallop and layered melody. But unfortunately that’s the only real eye opening track on the album worth revisiting as the rest of the album is chock full of predictable genre bound clichés; “Birth” delivers the album's requisite slower, more controlled chugging track with the first noticeable extended solo work. “Sinbred City” is the stern thrash based number; “Nemesis” and the title track are the standard galloping melodeath tracks with some introductory acoustics. Then the album is rounded out by the lengthy, experimental, progressive track, “Room of Paintings”.
To their credit, Dawn of Relic don’t sound typically Finnish as they aren’t just happy cantering, uber melodic Children of Bodom clones, but they are a pretty hackneyed and competent Gothenburg clone and that isn’t much better; Especially when a band like Mors Principium Est is smashing down melodic death metal's doors and buggering its structures.
If you absolutely need a Swedish sounding melodic death metal album that’s safe and solidly done, Dawn of Relic could fill a void, but you’ll be hungry again soon enough.
