Just when I started to wonder why many recent death metal releases stopped grabbing me, Danish Dawn of Demise came out unexpectedly and changed all that. Really, I could only point to Immolation’s album from last year’s death metal scene which I still play regularly. Has it become difficult to deliver something refreshing, captivating and at the same time brutal – my own personal prerequisites for a good death metal album? What if you wear your influences on your sleeve, so as to show the world the wheel is not going to be reinvented, but then proceed to dispense an album covering all fundamentals listed above? Dawn of Demise certainly tried it and is very successful in reaching their goals with Hate Takes Its Form.

The band’s songs do not breathe machismo, dazzle with speed or bury with technicality. Without 100,000 mph blasting and modern production-induced accentuated sonic devastation, Dawn of Demise bestows upon us the beast no less physically bruising, but quite a bit more mentally engaging. Tailor-made for headbanging, infectious, with meaty and brutal sound, Hate Takes Its Form revels in its downtuned melodies, intertwined with double bass pummels, thrashy outbursts and lead weightiness. In their constant competition between wreckage rhythms and guttural melodies, Dawn of Demise manages to make both into winners. Changing their skin like a chameleon, the album takes on predatory Kataklysm and sarcastic Aborted or Defleshed, while staying true to its most inner worship reference – moody Suffocation.

Perhaps what elevates the album the most is the fact that its individual songs have strength to stand on their own. Hovering around 5 min in length, and based around several separate riffing parts, they possess enough of distinct character for the album not to blend into one big blurb. Alternating mammoth heavy Intent to Kill with more flying on its thrash wings … And Blood Will Flow, Impurity and Malice – Kill to Conform creates interesting pace changes. The synchronized bass-guitar barbs in the opening title track and marching breakdown in Degrading the Worthless are perfect headbanging moments. About the only song I did not care for much was hardcore tilted Domestic Slaughter, but it is rescued by an excellent dynamic, melodic and battering closer Regain Our Masochist. In a true nod to early Suffocation just about every song includes a stand-alone solo, often the most melodic moment in a track, but also providing glimpses of dissonant guitar slides (Impurity). The instance when a lead would come is almost predictable, which sets certain expectations about the song structure, but who cares when these flashes, perhaps not included in the most organical of ways, are so reflective and masterfully executed. Dawn of Demise works when you are in the mood of breaking things and would not mind to smash a few teeth in on the faces of those you disdain, yet the band does it calculatingly and broodingly, rather than in a bout of blind fury.

Also predictable is the style of vocal attack by Scott Jensen, one of the three Jensens (brothers?) making up the band. He travels on two very distinct planes. On one he is scratching the absolute sonic bottom, coming up with barely legible, Frank Mullen-like bellows, which will take some getting used to if you lack experience with this style. Still buried in lower registers, he also has another, more “singing”, style, which is borderline Johan Hegg’s (Amon Amarth).

The label promises us the utter domination on the global death metal scene. I do not know about that yet, but Dawn of Demise is easily the most relevant Danish death metal band since Autumn Leaves, their Embrace by the Absolute being my absolute golden standard of that country’s death metal. In truth, it is that album that Hate Takes Its Form reminds me of, and that is the best complement I can make.