Golden Dawn
Masquerade
[Napalm]
i never knew to expect this album but when i heard of it, i could've not
been more excited. GD was the vehicle of one man, Stefan Traunmüller. He
only used session musicians before, but now the band has three other
members (the drummer is from Abigor).
GD has released only one album earlier, "Art of Dreaming", which in my opinion is one of the most magnificent albums ever. His unreleased second album "a Solemn Day" was less exciting, but mostly due to bad production etc., so it still showed great promise anyway.
"Art of Dreaming" was all occult and Castaneda, and i've heard rumours that he stopped the warrior-path because of the difficulty without a nagual. Well. Maybe this should've been warning enough.
This album starts without much brilliance but with some promise. The first song is reminiscent of the first album's extravagance but falls short. Unfortunately, after that the album doesn't start climbing upwards, but resorts to (me) uninspiring guitar-driven dark/gothic metal; the cover art-work is warning of this new gothic approach. There are some vague attempts at creating interesting song-structures, but they lack the extravagance and remain very bland.
i don't know the lyrics of the first album, but i can imagine a lot. The lyrics on this one are included, and they are nothing short of silly, as if they were just written because they needed to write lyrics.
i'm not one to say that a band should keep on the same track, but albums should be taken as their own works, and a band can evolve. Though in this case, it's not so much evolving but merely winding down. There's obviously still yearning for the old style, but it just doesn't happen.
One surprise is the last song, "Angel". It's absolutely obnoxious with "inspired" and gothic female vocals, which are quite good, but seem plastered over the song. The music is basically similar, but there are some electronic parts that make it a perfect song to be played on a goth club. And i sort of like it. The highlight of the album, for sure.
But mostly it just remains empty romanticism. Amazingly weak.
© 2003 rotblood
GD has released only one album earlier, "Art of Dreaming", which in my opinion is one of the most magnificent albums ever. His unreleased second album "a Solemn Day" was less exciting, but mostly due to bad production etc., so it still showed great promise anyway.
"Art of Dreaming" was all occult and Castaneda, and i've heard rumours that he stopped the warrior-path because of the difficulty without a nagual. Well. Maybe this should've been warning enough.
This album starts without much brilliance but with some promise. The first song is reminiscent of the first album's extravagance but falls short. Unfortunately, after that the album doesn't start climbing upwards, but resorts to (me) uninspiring guitar-driven dark/gothic metal; the cover art-work is warning of this new gothic approach. There are some vague attempts at creating interesting song-structures, but they lack the extravagance and remain very bland.
i don't know the lyrics of the first album, but i can imagine a lot. The lyrics on this one are included, and they are nothing short of silly, as if they were just written because they needed to write lyrics.
i'm not one to say that a band should keep on the same track, but albums should be taken as their own works, and a band can evolve. Though in this case, it's not so much evolving but merely winding down. There's obviously still yearning for the old style, but it just doesn't happen.
One surprise is the last song, "Angel". It's absolutely obnoxious with "inspired" and gothic female vocals, which are quite good, but seem plastered over the song. The music is basically similar, but there are some electronic parts that make it a perfect song to be played on a goth club. And i sort of like it. The highlight of the album, for sure.
But mostly it just remains empty romanticism. Amazingly weak.
© 2003 rotblood