At the Dawn
Land in Sight

This Italian sextet does their work at the dawn, and this time they have land in sight. That would seem like a good thing considering the weather on the cover art, a good-looking cover art I might add. Italy and a cover that looks that way certainly makes you think power metal, a genre which flag is held most highly by the Italians. At least if you look at the number of bands in that genre coming from that nation, and they are good at it and if At the Dawn is like their countrymen they will have made a good album. This is their second album, the first one was released two years ago in 2013 and the band was formed back in 2011. So how about this album then, is it as good as the cover art looks?

Well, it is the genre it looks like, power metal. There are some progressive elements, a bit of orchestral stuff and such things. Very catchy, melodic, pretty high paced metal with catchy choruses – very polished production that bears the hallmarks of this genre but also of producer Simone Mularoni who is a very accomplished producer and musician. The soundscapes are very good, though they may not really deviate that much from what is commonplace within this genre, novelty is not really a word one can associate with acts of this genre. And that goes for the vocalist as well, he sounds typical of an Italian power metal singer, in the vain of Fabio Lione. The album is quite long but relatively varied; the album has a dozen tracks that end with an Iron Maiden cover.

It is a pretty good album I would say, good catchy songs and a decent singer – the sound is excellent so they have a lot going for them. What they not have going for them is the lack of novelty, from a critic’s point of view this album is slightly lacking in relevance thanks to the fact that there already are very many albums like it out there. Pick any Italian power metal band at random and you’ll find an album of equal quality and style – it is no better or worse than most other Italian power metal bands out there. Thing is though that Italian power metal stands for great music that makes you smile so from that viewpoint I would describe it as a really good album worth lending an ear, but as I stated before, that can be said about many Italian power metal bands.

All the songs hold a decent quality but I think the one that really stand out is the cover song, Revelation which was first performed by Iron Maiden – they do that song really well and the fact that it is an unusual Iron Maiden song to cover makes it even better. Their own songs are all good, maybe better than the cover but the cover stands out both for being different from the rest and because I know it since a long time ago. Anyway, fans of Italian power metal will probably enjoy this album much as they enjoy any album in the genre, critics should say that it is okay but dismiss it a little bit due to its lack of novelty.

HHHHHHH