When we opened up the huge cardboard box of CDs that just came in from Battle Kommand this week, we were gorging ourselves on all manner of black metal goodness, alot of which we hadn't really heard much of previously. All kinds of killer shit hit our ears, Ruins Of Beverast, Cult Of Daath, and others all shredding us into oblivion. One band that really surprised us, however, was the obscure outfit Dawnbringer, a seemingly studio-only project that has released only a small handful of discs since forming in 1995. The main figure behind Dawnbringer is one Chris Black, also a member of Moto-rippers Superchrist and power metallers Pharoah as well as contributing bass guitar, concepts, and engineering skills for past Nachtmystium recordings; from what we've been able to sort out, Chris is the main creative force behind the band, and is assisted by friends and collaborators in the studio to flesh out his songs. Something of an amalgam of metal styles, Dawnbringer's releases all expertly combine heavy doses of riffing and speedy gallop rhythms right out of the pantheon of 80's metal with strange song structures, raw black metal, odd prog-like flourishes, and most of all an ability to kick out some immensely catchy hooks for just about everything I've ever heard from this project. Old school sounding heavy metal isn't something we usually hear being experimented with, but every Dawnbringer release takes classic sounding, anthemic-as-hell metal and warps it into something exciting and a bit weird. It wasn't always Chris Black's solo project, though...before he took over the name, Dawnbringer was originally conceived as a one-man band for John Weston. Yeah, it's a little confusing for us too. Anyways, Weston started off with the band's first release, the 4-song Sacrament EP that was issued by the now long-gone Pennsylvania label Twilight Records. These four jams pack in a wealth of stellar metal goodness, really raw and gritty, but packed with loads of killer riffs that stick in yer head for days. The confusional vibe starts immediately with the disc's opener, "Rider At The Gate Of Dawn, Part 2", a haunting acoustic lament over spacey psychedelic electronic noises, but then rips into the title track, an unstoppably freaking catchy black/thrash anthem with awesome distorted vocals that sound like they're being shouted out of a megaphone. The rest of the disc continues to blend together early Ulver style black metal with super catchy hooks, blazing blasting drumming, weird sudden detours into sunlit acoustic folk interludes and almost dancey rhythms, and droning strings. It culminates with our fave track on the disc, "In A Handful Of Dust", which begins with another anthemic black metal/heavy metal assault and ragin' Maiden-esque guitar melodies, but then breaks down halfway into an awesome melodic passage that sounds eerily like Fred Myrow's theme from Phantasm. After that, it builds back into the speedy black metal tremolo attack and blazing hard-rock solos, finally dissolving into an acoustic reprise. Man, I cannot get enough of that song. Strange, highly infectious blackened heavy metal, a basement hybrid of Ulver and Blue Oyster Cult and 80's horror movie pop-metal soundtracks and grim, twilight atmospheres basking in the cold glow of flickering streetlights.

The CD is packaged in a slimline case.