LONELINESS

Dawn is a fantastic newer symphonic rock band from Switzerland. I'll cut to the chase...keyboardist Nicolas Gerber channels the sounds that Tony Banks forgot to bring along with him on the recent Genesis reunion. This album is filled with tons of Mellotron and analog synth sounds that any fan of old school prog will freak over. For some odd reason, vocalist/guitarist Rene Degoumois constantly reminds me of the gentle tones of Pye Hastings. Bassist Julien Vuataz and Patrick Dufresne hold down the rhythmic fort quite well. Lots of long tunes give the band plenty of opportunity to stretch out. For such a young band they have developed a great knack for structuring a tune around "the big moment" - that's the point in the tune where your jaw drops and you get the chills...like Hackett's solo on "Firth Of Fifth". Clearly a band we will be hearing a lot more from.

All things considered this is a remarkably mature opening album for 'Dawn' and for me at any rate it contains little, if anything, that fails to please.

I sincerely hope that Dawn will be able to maintain the impressive form they have shown on this, their first album, and I for one look forward to more and better things to come. If there is such a thing as justice in the world, then Dawn are certainly destined to become a well known name in the years ahead.

I can't wait to listen to the new album "Darker", one thing I never understood is why new bands that have no track record are not making the album cover amazingly attractive to catch the potential (buyer's) listeners attention? on "Darker" they did even a worse cover job, stupid! I guess "don't judge an (a book) album by it's cover" comes here to life!

Highly recommended. for me 4.5 stars rounded to 5