Tracedawn - Tracedawn
Red House Finland Music Publishing
Melodic Death Metal
8 songs (41.39)
Release year: 2008
Tracedawn, Red House Finland Music Publishing
Reviewed by Aleksie
Tracedawn is a young bunch of metalheads from Finland. I think the average of their ages is hovering just below 20, but these dudes definitely have the instrumental chops to fool several listeners on their self-titled debut album. The band’s musical styling falls somewhere where the melody-heavy metal roughhousing of Children Of Bodom meets a slight Machine Head-feel and even a tiny dose of proggy doodling. The guitars take the forefront with solos to spare and the keyboards act mainly as an atmospheric factor, bar a few nice leads.

The biggest divisive element in the band is probably singer Antti Lappalainen. His guttural shouts (from somewhere between Corpsegrinder and Alexi Laiho, neither completely cookie or throaty) are very impressive, even for a guy double his age. There is definite power and anger to be felt. The doubt takes hold when he alternates into clean vocals. You can clearly hear the need of experience in this style. He seems technically in tune, but the voice just feels so mellow and – hate to say it – weaker when compared to the shouts that the songs lose a significant amount of intensity as a result. The piano-driven ballad Widow is a prime example of this lack, as the voice just hasn’t got the emotional gusto in it yet to deliver such a tune. I feel this is only a matter of gaining confidence, which should come with time, especially when backed up by this many capable players. Nino Laurenne of Thunderstone-fame has done a very admirable job with the strong production work and his guest guitar solo on Art Of Violence.

Without Walls starts the set of song with a pounding riff and mighty double bass-pounding leading into some wicked sweep-picked guitar harmonies. A tune that should definitely work on the live stage. Test Of Faith hits it off with a little thrashier guitar work with a nice groove. But the tune gets most enjoyable in the middle where the band goes for a little simplistic tempo noodling that is aching towards Meshuggah and Gojira. Not nearly as mind-destroying as those groups can get, but fun for prog nerds like me. Path Of Reality must also be mentioned, as the hard rocking power metal-vibes it holds within get my fist pumping quite well. The album is closed appropriately with Justice For None, which combines some ass-kicking speed-bursts, small Dream Theaterish tricks with the beats, and a pretty catchy chorus.

All in all, Tracedawn displays extremely formidable potential on their first album. The score would have easily been ten points higher, maybe even into the Surprise of the Month-levels, if the clean vocals had some more cojones in them. As I said, this should need nothing more than time to get a lot better, and if the rest of the band grows along at a similar rate, Tracedawn will be knocking down doors in Finland and beyond, fast.


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Killing Songs :
Test Of Faith, Path Of Reality and Justice For None
Aleksie quoted 71 / 100
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