Dawn of Solace - Flames of Perdition (2022)^{Release ID: 34717}

Finland's Dawn of Solace was originally the solo project of Before the Dawn / Wolfheart multi-instrumentalist Tuomas Saukkonen and was put on hold in 2013 while he concentrated on Wolfheart. Since restarting Dawn of Solace in 2019 the band has also featured Mikko Heikkilä on clean vocals. Now, I am unfamiliar with the band's previous output and my natural aversion to most gothic metal made this a less than attractive proposal. However, I must admit to being pleasantly surprised by Dawn of Perdition. It manages to convey sorrow and mournfulness without resorting to over-the-top vocal and musical affectations, in fact I would say it is a very restrained album and that is to it's credit. On several tracks I was expecting some harsh death metal vocals to come in as Saukkonen ramped up the instrumental heaviness, seemingly having set them up, yet the duo held fast and stuck solely with Mikko Heikkilä's cleans and defied expectations and thus predictability. There's some nice build up and progressions during most of the tracks with the band not averse to acoustic-led passages to contrast the heaviness of the riffs. Keyboards are well utilised adding a layer of atmosphere and with some almost proggy flourishes for additional flair. An album like this is unlikely to ever make my AOTY, but I found this to be very enjoyable and it left me feeling like I had been listening to a less emotionally draining version of Moonflowers, Swallow the Sun's heartbreaking latest album.

A couple of live-in-the-studio acoustic versions of tracks from previous albums (Dead Air from The Darkness and Lead Wings from Waves) finish off the album and despite not being familiar with the originals, I thought these were really well worked and sounded great.