I have yet to hear of more than a handful of metal bands that incorporate electronic / techno influences into their sound and being successful with it. Actually, until now, only Labyrinth has pulled it off without sounding forced, cheesey, or having the music end up as some big jumbled mess. F5 is spearheaded by Chris Rifkin, who plays guitar, keyboards, and drum programming, while the vocals are provided by one Leann Serao, takes this challenge and to my surprise, they too have managed to create a highly enjoyable meld of electronic music and heavy metal.

The songs on Dawn of a New Age range from the slow and brooding to outright speed metal and in between there are a number of midtempo, driving metal numbers that pulse with a harsh energy. Starting off with the title track, I am greeted with somber, melancholic singing from Leann for the first two minutes or so with ambient keyboards going off in the background. After setting this mood of emptiness, or anticipation if I relate the passage to the song title itself, the keyboards begin to build up and when the guitars and drums kick in the music explodes into a solid heavy metal tune reminiscent of the Awake album from Dream Theater. One complaint I do have about this killer track is that after the heaviness breaks in, the singing goes into a barely audible, almost talked kind of thing, and just a few words here and there. If there were some actual singing with some nice vocal melodies over this section than it would have increased the killing factor of this track by tenfold. You Don’t Know Me could be confused with a classic metal song from the 80’s if it weren’t for the electronic beats that go through the whole of the track. The soulful singing really reminds me of old school metal bands, names don’t come to me because it manages to capture the spirit of those times, not one particular band. A pure speed track checks in with us later in the disc, Come Into the Light. Never letting up it has a great riff and a killer beat to it. I am also personally fond of the piano that is used to augment the chord progressions. The epic song of the album, Eye of the Storm is my favorite here. For the first few minutes again there is just some ambient sounds from the keyboards before going into a mid paced drive with Leann’s best vocal performance coming in as well.

Dawn of a New Age is a bold album in today’s metal world. Ever since hearing Labyrinth several years ago I have been wanting to hear another heavy metal meets electro album. Granted, F5 are not in the same top league as Labyrinth the comparisons are justifiable. I’m glad that a band like this has the guts to step up and deliver something different than what we have heard a thousand times before.