Thursday, September 24, 2009

Review: Tracedawn - Ego Anthem


"What the hell is going on? Skijumpers making music that sells gold.", asked Timo Tolkki with Stratovarius back in 1994 on their Dreamspace album. The song of course was Reign Of Terror and it was about Matti Nykänen, world's best skijumper who started singing and instantly became a success. Matti Nykänen couldn't sing back then and he still can't yet he is very popular in Finland...go figure. There has been more and more very young bands popping up to Finland's metalscene over the past years. Not that it's a bad thing of course...it's just that I have seen couple of youngsters from these bands in a civil-situation and they have acted like worldowners. With only couple of years in the industry under their belt there should be lot more humbleness. It will be a long drop from that cloud where they think they are.

How about Tracedawn then? They are just putting out their sophmore album titled "Ego Anthem". Their debut album "Path Of Reality" was released on 2008. But with Tracedawn I am glad to say things are different. They have a very high working moral and it shows...and above all...sounds. Members of Tracedawn are very young at age, oldest of them only being 22-years old. But god damn they are talented! You can hear from everything that they didn't just decide to put up a band few years ago. There has been huge amount of training for their instruments which they master very well. So all in all...playing is good...how about songs then? Most songs on "Ego Anthem" are in fact very good. I know how people love to compare bands with each other and if you would have to compare Tracedawn with something I'd say they've listened their share of Children Of Bodom and Norther but without being clones to those bands. Songs have twists and turns, lots of melodies and attitude. Now the trend part these days is that you have both clean and growling vocals presented and that goes with Tracedawn also. It's not a bad thing cause the mixture of those vocals works with the songs. It's not like "Dude we have to have this clean vocals cause it's so cool!" but more likely cause it fits the songs very well.

Although the album doesn't contain any flops I would still raise the following songs slightly above: "Part Of The Wounded", "In Your Name", "Repeating Mistakes", "The Forsaken". With those songs you hear this incredible potential Tracedawn has. Make no mistake...you'll hear about them more in the future.

And one other thing worth mentioning which says something about their potential is that they played on this years Wacken Open Air-Festival which just happens to be the festival of all metal festivals!

Review: 8.5/10

Ego Anthem tracklist:
  1. Make Amends
  2. Part Of The Wounded
  3. Scum
  4. In Your Name
  5. Your Way Is Not For Me
  6. Dirt Track Speedball
  7. Repeating Mistakes
  8. Brain Attack
  9. The Forsaken
Tracedawn is:
Pekko Heikkilä / Bass
Perttu Kurttila / Drums
Antti Lappalainen / Vocals
Vili Itäpelto / Keyboards
Tuomas Yli-Jaskari / Guitars
Roni Seppänen / Guitars

Links:
http://www.tracedawn.com
http://www.myspace.com/tracedawn
http://www.redhouse.fi
http://www.metalfromfinland.com/Tracedawn

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