In their third decade-set incarnation from hidden ashes and undrying blood returned Helsinki, Finland-based black metal quintet TRUE BLACK DAWN again carry their flurry of wraithlike tendency to the edge of the utter dark, imbued with the knowledge that the light inevitably fails as they pass into this third sphere of possession. A decade beyond their last (and arguably first) serious opus ‘Of Thick-circling Shadows‘ sows ten years worth of wizened intent within its soaring volleys of malice and ecstatic rushes of chasmic resound, a fully-fledged and scaled-over set of black metal pieces which are neither mewling for the past or obsessed with futurity as they aim for the timelessness of diabolic spiritual reach herein. In plainest terms this album is generally an improvement upon the successes of its predecessor though it has its fixation(s) to the point that it narrowly achieves a varietal showing here. A worthy addition to this cult band’s uneven yet adaptive legacy and certainly one of the finer Finnish black metal showcases this year.

True Black Dawn formed circa 1992 as a blackened death metal band under the name Nocturnal Feast and for their time they were more-or-less just making noise to start without a clear direction beyond blasphemy and mid-paced, uglier movements on the ‘Hymn to Darkness‘ (1992) demo tape where you can hear some vague sensation of Florida’s more outspoken blasphemers of death metal and the sounds coming from Finland at the time. By the end of that first year they’d changed their name to Black Dawn and gotten to work on a second demo tape (‘War Against Christians‘, 1993) and that’ll likely be where the ‘old school’ death metal collector will be most interested in this band as their blackened version of ‘Deicide‘ and ‘Harmony Corruption‘ meeting up with the frantic nascence of Impaled Nazarene and I guess Beherit (or, Sarcófago?) makes for a damned good introduction to their initial ten year run. Anyhow, if you like riffs don’t hesitate to stretch back into the early 90’s within this bands discography. From there we get a rehearsal tape (‘Dead Metal‘, 1996) where some songs were clearly inspired by the “dark metal” of the time with slower, doomed tempos and use of keyboards but we begin to see black metal as the dominant force in their more aggressive movements. I particularly enjoyed the demo era of this band as it reeks of enthusiasm for the times and focuses on the riff or the melody in most cases, even if they were just participating by some standards the roots of this band are in the 90’s and this ultimately counts for something.

Set our knife upon the lamb you’ve come to know, erase everything you’ve gathered about 90’s Black Dawn as they’d reinvent themselves for the wrathful, maniac debut album (‘Blood For Satan‘, 2001) they’d released soon after. This’d been the band’s official stab at black metal and at the time it was heavily compared to Marduk‘s ‘Panzer Division Marduk‘ probably sounded a bit more like Immortal overall and I’d always kind of associated it with Tsjuder‘s debut from the year before with a similar attitude and use of samples with the grindcore feeling of early 90’s Impaled Nazarene. For some it was a classic of Finnish black metal of the era, to others it was just an amusing album cover but in my case it was the most important root for the band to plant on their path forward. There was at least some conviction applied on that first album, with standout drumming from Grief the original drummer of …And Oceans, but I don’t think anyone who’d followed their path had taken the band all that seriously especially as the three way split they’d released in 2005 seemed to follow another path toward, eh, industrial black metal or whatever.

Fifteen years later and with only vocalist Wrath (Enochian Crescent) and ‘Blood for Satan‘-era guitarist Syphon (Ymir, ex-…And Oceans) returning the second life of Black Dawn would arrive under True Black Dawn after they were likely cease-and-desist ordered by a New York-based alternative metal band over the original name. ‘Come the Colorless Dawn‘ (2014) would be their statement of intent and at that point they’d made a record that could be considered both serious and relevant to where they’d left off back in 2001. The main observation I’d writ when searching through the band’s discography to such an extent was that however often they’d produced a new release it was almost always indicative of what black metal sounded like at the time be it the early 90’s or the mid-2010’s. There are a few reasonable ways to view this inconsistency of form: On one hand it reflects changing interests, collaborators and the reality of experiences being cumulative as a fan and participant of extreme metal or on the other hand one might see it as a changeling form seeking relevance. Either way the True Black Dawn of ten years ago and of today resembles what most would consider moody, elite and Satanic Finnish black metal with a dramatic ebb to its rhythmic driver.

Though the intended tone of dark, evil majesty is well-struck throughout (particularly as opener “Algol” incites) at times ‘Of Thick-Circling Shadows‘ is a step into another portal entirely wherein atmospheric and nigh melodious dramatism overtake their violent thrum. The most surprising examples of this arrives early on in the running order as the glorious loft “Night and Names” takes us one step beyond a simple melodic black metal arrangement. The majority of this album sources a mid-to-fast paced ‘classicist yet current’ Finnish black metal aspect, typically melodic in some sense and you’ll understand what I mean maybe three or four songs into the album. The major voice and directive of this album comes by way of vocal performances, sure, but it is the soar of the lead guitar which takes this album places and it reveals itself as early as “The Depths of the Looking Glass” b/w the incredibly stated “The Wind from the Red Cloud” coming soon after. There the appeal of this record should be plainly obvious to newcomers. To those returning after a decade the revision upon the sometimes middling tone of the previous record will be clear enough otherwise as we find some extra layers of synth applied and at times less of a focus on the riff and its full extraction. Production values go a long way here, and the sound design is pristine in its menace, though it is the guitar work which carries this album up and holds it high for my own taste.

On some level “Night and Names” and the two pieces which surround it were enough to key me into this album’s reach, the effect of the record had already roused enough interest though there is yet more to show as we’ve ten songs stretched across about ~46 minutes to parse. “Fish, Sin and Soma” recalls the 2001 sound of the band, its brutally struck speed and the melodic turn soon after feels nearly identical to the opener on ‘Blood For Satan‘ and this turns out to be a welcome change of engagement, a direct piece which still finds the space to strike at one of their alienate leads as a sky-spiraling feature. I don’t know if I was air guitaring out some tremolo picked leads per se but the warbling voicing provided by the lead guitars would become one of the most important features of the full listen as I repeatedly passed passed through; Additional input from drummer VnoM (Phlegein, et al.) and guitarist T.G. (Trollheim’s Grott), both of which played on the previous album as well, seems to have deepened this album’s reach in the sense that I’d felt like these results are especially up to the standard of the current Finnish underground black metal trait (see: “Worlds in the Mirror” b/w “Palace of Ash”) and not a re-warmed relic of the past. That said, there are a couple of pieces (“Volaverunt”, mostly) which’d felt either redundant, or understated on some level. This matches the energy of the rest of the record most of the time but to be sure there were moments that’d landed as vestigial parts to my ear overall.

In fact the only complaint I’ve here is also the main compliment I’ve to give: The lead guitar runs which voice the album are more often than not the most (or, only) engaging part of any given song on ‘Of Thick-Circling Shadows‘ to the point that they are hard to look past… and also a glorious fixation. Though I’d say their modus is nigh overused and calls for some variety of guitar tone/sound this never obstructs the album but instead gives it solid footing to develop these ten songs around. I’d been more a fan of the variety shown elsewhere on this album and felt one or two songs could’ve been cut for a more succinct listen. Otherwise the full spin of this record was never a taxing or particularly challenging overall, the core dramatic effect comes across well. I’d have similar comments for the cover artwork (via Jukka Siikala / Babalon Graphics) which is also not exactly the peak of my own taste in imagery yet feels well in context here as a representative work with a dramatic effect. While there are some tuneful moments here which should naturally inspire most black metal oriented folks this record is decidedly one for the admirer of the Finnish underground past and present and/or anyone aiming for this particular spiritual angle otherwise. I’d felt a strong connection with True Black Dawn‘s intent and the substantive reach of this material with all traits and talents feeding into an above-average result with somewhat broad appeal. A moderately high recommendation.

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