Review Sacred Dawn - A Madness Within 2011

As I play this Sacred Dawn album there's just a few things that strikes me which I'd like to share with you. First of all we have the importance in pronouncing every single word so correct that even a speech pathologist would be stunned. Then there's the importance in telling everyone who every single musician in this band is, rather than the importance in telling us who the band is. And then there's the pretty blatant music.

According to the information we get with every album, Sacred Dawn is a heavy metal band with a progressive spin that "deliver one of the most original progressive metal musical experience heard since the dawn of true prog metal" and they have "an innovative mix of heavy metal and hard rock and a[n] unique blend of coxal harmonies". Sounds great with all these "innovative" and "original" ingredients and they're also inspired by a whole lot of bands which, along with the next thing in this information, is the ultimate sign of desperation as bands starts listing bands they've shared stage with. What the hell does this say about THEIR music?! NOTHING! I've seen death metal bands open for power metal acts. I've seen hardcore bands warm audience for thrash memtal. And I've seen bands that really suck play before some of the best in the world. So it doesn't mean a fucking thing at all for me that Sacred Dawn brags about being support act for Symphony X, Testament, Cage, Firewind, Kamelot and Epica. It doesn't say anything about their own quality or knowledge in music, and the variety of these bands doesn't help either. The only thing all this information tells me is that they want to tell everyone how good they think they are and since they can't say this with the music they play they have to use big words to tell it to us. Just like me so far, because until now - what have I actually said about the music on this album?

A Madness Within' is a full hour of tape divided on ten chapters that will help you speak excellent English. After every word Lathar Kelly, the narrator voice on the record, gives us a second or so pause for us to repeat the words he just uttered and that's how the vocal part is done throughout the entire tape. Or in some cases, three or four words in sequence with a somewhat longer pause. The music played along the vocal part is not always slow or hesitating, which you might suspect as the vocal side goes that way. Instead I think the music often have a flow and pretty nice sound, swinging away in the melodies and going a bit different in tone. I'm not saying it works well all the time, but more positive than negative most of the time. Those progressive sounds (or "spins") are not too apparent but shines through from time to time and they making the music slightly different in the form of marginally different rhythms and melodies. Often though, I think this has a tendency to halter the music and making it stumble around a bit and then I also think Sacred Dawn has a tendency to throw in a kinds of things that they really doesn't seem to know why or at least can't motivate for us the necessity in adding to the music. In my opinion, they seem to justify their "progressive spin" by adding strange things to the music, things that sounds a bit different and things you can't really understand. Strange things (because ether want) to be progressive or strange things (because they think) that makes the music better? Well, that's the real question - isn't it?

As a whole, 'A Madness Within' feels quite pointless to me, which also is the reason for this review to have a six months composing time. I've needed those to add up impressions enough to get a review out of it. I think it's pretty common heavy metal, though with some quite desperate attempts to distinguish itself from the rest. And they make these desperate attempts in the form of distorting the guitars a bit different. Or by doing something completely preposterous on the keyboard. Or by changing tempo quite abrupt. Or go to a full stop. Before they continue. Or by something other completely strange and unmotivated that destroy any kind of natural flow the music might have had. SOme songs live long enough to actually be pretty good without getting ruined on the way, but as a whole this is a desperate call for attention. See us! Hear us! Write about us! Listen to us! We write more about every individual in the band than the actual band so that every reviewer can know exactly who's behind the music. And then they can write positive things about us as individual musicians. We try to make everyone see how great we are by writing big words rather than letting the music do the big words and inform us about things that actually matters in the information. Such as where, when, how and with whom they've recorded the album. What the album is about. Where they want the album to take them. And us. What will happen next… no such things are in the information. But we get to know where every musician has attended school...

There are obviously quite a few things I don't like about 'A Madness Within', but despite all of these I give Sacred Dawn approved with this effort, though in the "weak" region. This is quite honestly not a very interesting feature in my world of music and perhaps that's because I miss the greatness with it? But I would say it's more likely that they themselves don't understand it. An hour of tape where we can learn English to doubtful music is not really my cup of heaven.

HHHHHHH

Sacred Dawn A Madness Within

Sacred Dawn
A Madness Within