��Garth Arum's debut is a flamboyant blast of blackened, symphonic prog metal headed up by sole member Nightmarer, who does an impressive job of handling all of the instruments on Dawn along with the vocals, save for a couple of guest female singers who make an appearance on a few songs. Also a member of the gothic prog-doom band As Light Dies, Nightmarer brings a similar over-the-top propensity for sometimes absurdly complex songwriting, wild shifts in musical style, and a pretty deep weird streak as his other band.

�� Combining progressive rock influences with that symphonic black metal sound, The Dawn Of A New Creation delivers a baroque, offbeat sonic assault that fans of stuff like Arcturus, Winds, Ebonylake, Azure Emote and even Sigh will probably dig; the musicianship is excellent, the songwriting is solid, the arrangements ambitious, the rapid fire tempo changes are skillfully executed. Opening with the staccato Meshugga-esque mathcrush of "A New Creation", this brief intro track shifts into the sounds of lilting female voices singing in harmony and fragile piano melodies, introducing the dreamy atmosphere that courses through Dawn's lush orchestral prog-metal. That bombast finally fully materializes with "Shadows Of The Past", as clearly sung male vocals rise over the complex raging prog metal, Hammond organs and piano and strings all flowing over the haunting melodic heaviness, rapid-fire blastbeats and surges of sinister black metal style tremolo riffs swarming over the lush dramatic arrangements. Other songs open with blazing black metal assaults before shifting back into that soaring metallic pop-prog, or shift suddenly into elliptical piano and symphonic arrangements before taking flight again. There are parts where the music drops off into stretches of grueling, Hammond-streaked deathdoom that fucking kills, and surges of complex, operatic blackness that can be really reminiscent of early Arcturus.

��The rest of Dawn is just as demented, filled with virtuosic guitar shred spiraling out of control above those swirling piano melodies, swells of 70s style space rock synthesizer whooshing across the album, with the music continuously veering off back into that vicious, discordant black metal. And did I mention the flutes? There are flutes all over this thing, as if someone parachuted poor Ian Anderson into the middle of a blazing La Masquerade Infernale-esque jam session. Then there's the jangly, female-fronted gloom-pop that starts off "The Path To Oblivion", sounding somewhat like The Gathering, even as it surges from pummeling double-kick thunder and metallic guitars into the odd electro-pop synths and skittering drum machines and gorgeous choral voices that suddenly appear, like some weird cross between romantic 80's pop and crushing orchestral metal. It's in moments like that that Dawn Of A New Creation suddenly turns into something akin to a symphonic black metal version of Toto's majestic score for Lynch's Dune. Told you that this is wild shit. It's probably a bt too much for true-blue extreme metallers and the synth-phobic, but the talent on display is pretty impressive, the songwriting skillfully blending soaring hooks and moments of crushing heaviness with the baroque, symphonic progginess. Easily my favorite of all of the recent Satanath releases I picked up.