Sacred Dawn - Gears Of The Machine ... A New Beginning
Nightmare Records
Heavy Metal
13 songs ()
Release year: 2008
Sacred Dawn, Nightmare Records
Reviewed by Ben

Sacred Dawn hail from Chi town USA and Gears Of The Machine… A New Beginning is their debut release. The music contained here is mostly mid pace melodic metal that is rooted in an old school mentality with some modern guitar tones spread here and about. There’s plenty of double bass action and a heaping slab of guitar solos yet the songs don’t translate the urgency needed for these situations. The production job is quite awful and hinders the quality of the songs greatly. Dynamics are completely shot due to the poor knob job. Clean electric / acoustic passages don’t transition to the crunch of the tension building chords at all. Some interesting guitar work gets lost in the murky mix, and those mentioned kick drums that should be thunderous, are reduced to cardboard box hits with a Nerf bat.

Fighting through the cloudy audio aura are the individual band members who are indeed fairly talented. What is a welcome surprise is listening to the versatility of the band‘s singer. Lothar Keller has quite a few voices in his repertoire. Where he fits best is in the lower registers such as the intro for Walls Of Jericho. Here his brooding, deep, baritone conveys the emotions of the song up high. The main style used throughout the majority of the album is a bit lower Warrel Dane style. Unfortunately this style doesn’t suit the music the band is playing like it should. When Sacred Dawn are trying to be dark and moody such as in White Road, Black Sun the singing fails to gel with the song. Time will show if there’s improvement if he keeps this as the main voice of the band.

Guitars are aplenty and I can honestly say that guitarists Lothar (pulling double duty there) and John Vitale do not limit themselves to any kind of template. You’ll hear a riff that sounds like a blast from Soundgarden’s past (I’m The One), next to a galloping, traditional metal riff. The solos don’t disappoint. In spite of the modern slant to several songs and passages, (which are enjoyable) all of the guitar solos are soaring like they should be.

Gears Of The Machine… has the sound of a band who developed a working and competent early stage sound, and then settled into a comfort zone. Taking a couple songs at a time there are highlights. Shadows and (Worlds Apart) The Desire have enough going in them that they can stand alone. But when you play this all the way through it all blends into one big smear. This is not bad, it is not atrocious, nor is it unlistenable. It just isn’t memorable.

Killing Songs :
Shadows, Walls Of Jericho
Ben quoted 68 / 100
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There are 1 replies to this review. Last one on Tue May 20, 2008 9:05 am
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