I have covered Denmark’s lumbering death metal friends Dawn Of Demise, a bunch at this here website: from their debut in 2008, through the Lacerated EP i in 2009, to A Force Unstoppable in 2010, their last for Deepsend Records (RIP). They moved to Unique Leader for Rejoice in Vengeance (2012) and The Suffering (2016), as well as their last album 6 years ago, Into the Depths of Veracity, all the way back in 2019, where they added just a smidge of melody to their generally mid-paced, bludgeoning sound.
For the new album, original guitarist Jakob Nyholm has rejoined the fray, joining Scott Jensen (vocals), Martin K. Sørensen (guitar), Bastian Thusgaard (drums), and Bjørn Jensen (bass), all members since the band’s formation in 2003 (except Thusgaard, who joined in 2013).
I don’t know if the band broke up, went on hiatus, or just didn’t feel like releasing anything for 7 years, but regardless, they are back, and the sound is the same: beefy, mostly mid-paced Danish death metal.
Famed producer Tue Madsen (The Haunted, Aborted, Baest, Meshuggah, etc.) was brought in to produce, as he did on The Suffering and Rejoice in Vengeance, so the album sounds massive and …..Danish? That is to say, they still sound like a pulverizing mix of Illdisposed and, say, NYDM like Internal Bleeding, etc. And the band appears to have returned to their earlier sound, with the melody from Into the Depths of Veracity largely gone.
The formula hasn’t changed otherwise. Don’t expect anything different from the band’s prior 5 albums: big, beefy death metal that’s generally rooted in lumbering grooves, with a few blasts scattered around. And it’s still these grooves where Dawn of Demise hits the hardest and gets your neck snapping: “Revive Your Demise,” the absolutely head-bobbing duo of “Ominous” and “The Essence of Expirtation,” as well as the damn catchy “The Immoral”, “Downcast” (that opening groove is *chefs kiss*), slower, trundling “Dissociation”, “Onset of Iniquities”, “Sense Of Superiority”—heck, let’s just say all of ’em; just simple, meaty, enjoyable grooving death metal goodness, just like their last 5 albums.
