...DAWN

Dawn is a demo tape released in 1990 by Pan.Thy.Monium, one of Dan Swano's early project, even preceding Edge Of Sanity's debut. Usually i don't go for this stuff at all, but because of my big appreciation for this fantastic band, i wanted to check out their early recordings as well. After listening to their 1991 EP recording which wasn't to my liking, i approached this with no expectation at all, and i must say i'm positively surprised. First of all the sound quality is very good for an unknown swedish brutal death metal demo tape, drums are well recorded and mixed, guitars are heavy and loud and the keys are noticable. Overall pretty good.

So what do we have here...4 songs, three of the songs will be rerecorded and released later, two in their debut and one in their second album. The music here shows the band's brutal death metal side definitely not straight forward but with some interesting ideas mixed together. Tom Nouga which was responsible for the soloing guitar and the saxophone in their albums hasn't joined the band just yet, so this is less experimental but still does show the band has some original ideas. The music is doomy and slow but also fast and brutal at times, the songs are short but are not stuck on a main heavy riff, there are some changes in riffs and in tempo, i wouldn't go far and call it progressive but still interesting and well played, this is one of the most exceptional demos out there.

Although this was meant for the underground swedish scene, it shows the band's potential for a different kind of songwriting, this of course turned to be one of the best and most experimental bands out there. 3 stars is adequate for this genre.