Label : Ravenheart Records
Review by Tony Cannella
The Dutch Melodic, Gothic metal band A New Dawn returns with their second full-length album, “Seven Faces of Truth”. For this album, the band continues its unique style when it comes to the vocals. Two females are joined by Death Metal style male vocals from Mike Heuvel. Seven members, “Seven Faces of Truth”, I sense a correlation here. Actually “Seven Faces of Truth” is probably the most ambitious undertaking that A New Dawn have attempted – both musically and lyrically. The main character is Dawn and throughout the course of “Seven Faces of Truth”, her story is told as she wrestles with emotions ranging from happiness to sadness and everything in between, this is something that we all can relate to and A New Dawn captures perfectly the fact that what is going on in someone’s mind and heart are not always what they seem. The opening intro “My Name is Dawn” gets things started with Dawn’s own narrative, as additional voices (which also could be Dawn’s emotions, lending their own voices) join in to help exemplify the various emotions that the main character feels. Following the intro A New Dawn launches into the Maiden –esque “Contradiction”, which is followed by a re-recorded (and much more forceful) version “Desire” (originally heard on the “Finally…” EP). These two songs embody the relentlessness of the material contained on “Seven Faces of Truth”, throughout pretty much the entire one hour of playing time. Lyrically the band write what they know about, real emotions that reside within us all, consequently there is something that all of us can relate to on “Seven Faces of Truth”. Musically, there are a lot going on in the songs. Some albums are hard to describe song-by-song and this one of those moments where descriptions just simply will not do this album justice. Suffice it to say, A New Dawn tears through the material like a band on a mission mixing in tempo changes and longer songs like the excellent 7-minute “Battle In Twilight (Contradiction Part 2)”. With shorter songs like “The Madness Within” – which disarms the listener with a violin solo before it develops into an all out thrash/death metal number. The interplay between the three vocalists is so well done and a huge strength for A New Dawn. Two more songs from the “Finally…” EP turn up as the re-recorded versions of “Masque of the Red Death” and the 8-minute “Final Verdict” sound better than ever, before the outro “Bellare Ad Aeternus” takes us to the end of the story and closes out “Seven Faces of Truth” reflectively with just a symphony and acoustic guitar. Even though A New Dawn formed way back in 1997, it is hard to believe this is only their second full-length. In between they have released several demos, EPs and even a DVD but this is their sophomore full-length effort, and in my opinion, this is the best thing they have ever done. As far as melodic, power, gothic metal (or whatever you want to call it) goes; it doesn’t get much better than this.
Rating – 95/100
Tracklist
- My Name is Dawn
- Contradiction
- Desire
- Composition of Life
- Prelude to Farewell (Part 1)
- Theatre of Fears
- Battle in Twilight (Contradiction Part 2)
- The Madness Within
- Masque of the Red Death
- Final Verdict
- Bellare Ad Aeternus
Line Up
- Jamila Ifzaren – Vocals
- Alysia van Horik – Vocals
- Mike v.d. Heuvel – Growls
- Michiel Glas – Guitar
- Elbert de Hoog – Guitar
- Peter Groen – Bass
- Rik Bruineman – Drums
Links
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