Armed with shadowy, ever present grisly distortion guitars, The Dawn Of The Dying Sun preserves the droning heathen atmosphere its predecessor ...Again Shall Be imbued. Fortunately, this iteration improves aesthetic production and songwriting, leaning further into a post-Bathory Black Metal linage. Although its riffs frequently spin mid-tempo power chord on loop, vocals breaks and folksy instruments bring character to songs deeper in the record. Across nine roaring tracks, a variety of ideas emerge, yet little amounts to anything spectacular given a rather lukewarm execution.
Viking melodies present themselves early on through tuneful, suggestive keyboard arrangements and the ancestral campfire conjurings of acoustic guitar tone. Consistently jostling between the droning aggression and heathen expressions, a direction, conclusion or structure evades me. Consistent mediocrity tires its tone and evolution on mostly six minute songs. Alone Walkying was the only track to show its influences transparently, with a key riff simply playing an iteration of a Burzum classic.
I wasn't particularly interested in continuing this journey with Hades but its title track caught my ear on shuffle. In my youth, fresh to the sound, I would have enjoyed this immensely but to ears so familiar with Black Metal origins, it all feels a bit routine. I do however think their ideas could have been shaped up better. They captured the Bathory spirit well but this incarnation feels more like an echo of greatness.
Rating: 6/10