Golden Dawn
The Art of Dreaming
[Dark Matter]
Golden Dawn is a another one-man-band from Austria, often lost and discarded in
the pile of endless side projects and spontaneous collaborations of Abigor and
Summoning members. However, Golden Dawn is exclusively created by Dreamlord who
has only involved himself in his own projects (coldvoidspacesynth Apeiron and
sci-fi techno Vanitas alongside GD) and some intros and outros on fellow
musicians’ albums. There is a pile of guest musicians performing this material
with him, however, for example Martin Schirenc of Pungent
Stench/Vuzem/Hollenthon on guitars and T.T. of Abigor on drums.
”The Art of Dreaming” is an immense work and you can immediately hear the time, effort and inspiration used to it. The production is very carefully executed in the Dark Matter Studio to hone the sounds into perfection, with the drums blasting and pounding in a full tone, guitars clearly audible but thickly distorted, vocals (forceful black metal scream, operatic male vocals, a bit of female vocals and some distorted speech) and keyboards with an amount of depth but yet in complete balance; this might be the best produced metal album I have heard since Darkthrone’s ”Transylvanian Hunger” or Burzum’s ”Filosofem”! The sound here is much cleaner, not comparable to those two albums but what I am comparing, is the way the sounds relate perfectly to the material in question, bringing the ”art of production” beyond the simple level of recording the tracks with the equipment available, but giving it tone and depth.
The music is imaginative and maximalistic sometimes to the point of confusion. There is a honesty and a weird sense of both fantasy and black metal that keep this away from the ”sophisticated” Norwegian vomit-fests but I would not recommend this to anyone with a definite dislike of stuff like Bal-Sagoth and Limbonic Art. In comparison to those two, Golden Dawn is more dual in it’s approach; the guitars and synths are not being constantly forced to work together, but rather the style flows from pure no-synth executed fast occult black metal to synth-only instrumental passages sometimes lasting nearly ten minutes, with a scale of moods from epic-fantasy-soundtrack-orchestra to prog-trance-dreamworld.
There are surprising moments in these songs, but often also the abrupt breaks, changes in moods and sudden interludes break the flow in a way that will make the listener note with a frown that there is still room for Golden Dawn to progress. In this aspect, I would point to Solefald for comparison, even though I myself find lots of power in GD but can’t stand Solefald. Austria rules.
© 1999 black hate
”The Art of Dreaming” is an immense work and you can immediately hear the time, effort and inspiration used to it. The production is very carefully executed in the Dark Matter Studio to hone the sounds into perfection, with the drums blasting and pounding in a full tone, guitars clearly audible but thickly distorted, vocals (forceful black metal scream, operatic male vocals, a bit of female vocals and some distorted speech) and keyboards with an amount of depth but yet in complete balance; this might be the best produced metal album I have heard since Darkthrone’s ”Transylvanian Hunger” or Burzum’s ”Filosofem”! The sound here is much cleaner, not comparable to those two albums but what I am comparing, is the way the sounds relate perfectly to the material in question, bringing the ”art of production” beyond the simple level of recording the tracks with the equipment available, but giving it tone and depth.
The music is imaginative and maximalistic sometimes to the point of confusion. There is a honesty and a weird sense of both fantasy and black metal that keep this away from the ”sophisticated” Norwegian vomit-fests but I would not recommend this to anyone with a definite dislike of stuff like Bal-Sagoth and Limbonic Art. In comparison to those two, Golden Dawn is more dual in it’s approach; the guitars and synths are not being constantly forced to work together, but rather the style flows from pure no-synth executed fast occult black metal to synth-only instrumental passages sometimes lasting nearly ten minutes, with a scale of moods from epic-fantasy-soundtrack-orchestra to prog-trance-dreamworld.
There are surprising moments in these songs, but often also the abrupt breaks, changes in moods and sudden interludes break the flow in a way that will make the listener note with a frown that there is still room for Golden Dawn to progress. In this aspect, I would point to Solefald for comparison, even though I myself find lots of power in GD but can’t stand Solefald. Austria rules.
© 1999 black hate