The Six Elements, Vol.2 Water

After a short time, Dawn of a Dark Age from Italy return in order to offer the second part of the sixtology “The Six Elements”. Some time ago I had presented the first part, Earth, that it had caught my attention with their interesting style. Here I present the second element, Water. So, the album was released in January of 2015 and it contains six compositions, two of which are ambient-instrumental tracks, of overall duration of thirty six minutes. Someone would expect, especially in that sort period between the two releases that the result would be exactly the same. Fortunately, that is partly correct and partly wrong. The band maintains that characteristic style, the heavy sound, the different instruments (flute, violin, viola, clarinet) but on the other hand it presents a different result both in sentiments as also in images and atmosphere.

The band taking as the base of the album the water, plays with the listener between the calm dark waters which although that they are calm, they hide some kind of danger, of a threat. So gradually, the climax comes too with the brutal outbursts which are followed again by the narrow and depressing tranquillity. The riffs this time are warmer and dark, heavy, mainly of medium and slow speed with various fast outbursts. Both in this album, with simple technic, through different means they create a very interesting result that on one hand it maintains the identity of the band, on the other hand it presents a quite different side of it. The beautiful additions of the classical instruments make the images more intense and the compositions more interesting. The duration of the tracks is as long as the tracks need in order to be unfold and be evolved (from six to eight minutes) and their structure is good with a lot of smooth changes and parts which cause the surprise of the listener.

The production in this album has put out a warm, heavy and somewhat bass sound, not much different from the sound that had in the first album. The very good mixture which allows the listener to listen to every instrument clearly, combined with the good sound created by the production, give a very nice result. The instruments as also in the previous album are played flawlessly both regarding the technic and the feeling and passion that they put out. The guitars are heavy, they have a clean sound and they deliver the images and the atmosphere flawlessly. The bass isn’t clearly audible but it fills the album well. Both in here the drums come from a drum machine but their improvement is obvious. Their sound is better and their lines are much more interesting than those of the first album. The vocals that we will come across in Water, they have much variety depending on the sentiment of the part. So we find clean and melancholic ones, heavy and dark Death ones and the beautiful and expressing Black Metal vocals that we listened to also in the previous album. Finaly the lyrics are written in English, they are contained into the cd and they are dark and quite interesting.

The second effort of Dawn of a Dark Age is a step towards their evolution and their improvement. The good impression that their first album have made to me and the high expectations that it had born, are confirmed with the coming of “ Vol.2 Water”. The next elements, as the band has already announced, will be released every six months, so soon we will have the next part of this very interesting sixtology. Those of you who didn’t trust their first album, I think that you should listen to this one. It deserves your attention.