We've totally become enamoured with the albums and EP's of the somewhat enigmatic heavy metal project Dawnbringer, first hearing them through the new In Sickness And In Dreams album on Battle Kommand and then one by one discovering their older releases, which date back to the mid-90's. We're still kind of unsure what the story is with this band, as some of Dawnbringer's releases are essentially solo projects, but with completely different people involved with each release - the first EP, Sacrament, was basically the brainchild of just one guy, John Weston. After that, Weston would enlist an entire band for Unbleed, which included drummer and vocalist Chris Black, and later on Chris Black would take over the Dawnbringer name completely for the new In Sickness And In Dreams album. It's a little confusing.

1997's Unbleed was the first full length from Dawnbringer, an awesome mixture of prog, black metal, classic heavy metal that totally blew us away! So much of this is super melodic old school heavy metal with a total 80's feel, filled with with ridiculously anthemic Iron Maiden style twin guitar harmonies and awesome riffs that will lodge in your head for days - Dawnbringer have an awesome pop sensibility that, like the masters Iron Maiden, allows them to write unstoppably catchy tunes that most bands would kill to have. Both Weston and Black contribute vocals to the album, and Black's clean vocals are fucking AWESOME, a powerfully deep voice that reminds us of a young James Hetfield when he kicks in on "Untold", which is actually an awesome medley of songs of of the Battle Cry LP from 80's metal legends Omen! Total majestic metal perfection, but Dawnbringer aren't the retro-metal retreaders you might expect, no way - the songs are imaginatively structured, and shredding black metal blastbeats blaze through many of the songs; elsewhere, Dawnbringer use acoustic guitars for some of their solos, unleash awesome prog-rock keyboards, and employ weird production fuckery to create their strange fusion of Scandinavian blackness, 80's NWOBHM, and epic prog that defies catagorization and just completely kicks our ass! Highly recommended!! Awesome progrock style album art from Chris Cooper, too!