Just Before Dawn – Tides of Blood (Review)

Just Before Dawn are an international death metal band and this is their third album.

Having enjoyed both The Aftermath and The Dead and Those About to Die, a new Just Before Dawn release is always welcome.

To give you a very good idea of who has been involved with this album, I’m just going to reproduce a bit of the promo blurb below – 

Guest vocals on Tides of Blood by:

Dave Ingram (Benediction/Bolt Thrower) vocals on track 1,2,4,5,6,9,11
Matias Nastolin (Decaying) vocals/solo on track 3
Mattias Parkkila (Malfeitor/Blood Mortized) vocals on track 6
Ralf Hauber (Revel in Flesh) vocals on track 7
Teddy Möller (Hexed/Anima Morte) vocals/solos on track 8
Jocke Mikiver (Crawl/Tormention) vocals on track 8
Jonny Pettersons (Wombbath/Henry Kane/Just Before Dawn) vocals on track 10
Samuel Englund (Wombbath/Deathbreed) vocals on track 10
Wesley (Brutticus) Halliburtons Voice on intro track 10

And ripping solos by:

Gustav Myrin (Blood Mortized) solos first on track 7
Marco De Bruins (Thanatos) solos last on track 7
Daniel Gustavsson (Crawl) plays all acoustic guitars on track 1,11
Scott Fairfaxs (Memoriam/Benediction) solos on tracks 2,4
Håkan Stuvemark (Wombbath) solos on track 10

Phew! Quite the list.

This is war metal through and through. Mixing the Bolt Thrower approach to steamrolling death metal with the classic Swedish death metal sound, Tides of Blood was always going to be a winner with me.

The songwriting, musicianship, production, performances, etc. are all as you would want them to be for an album like this; everything here speaks of a quality old-school death metal album. It’s also arguably the band’s best work to date. If you’re a fan of your old-school music then this is effortlessly enjoyable.

The multiple vocalist approach works very well, especially as the ex-Bolt Thrower singer takes the lion’s share of the work, making for a consistent listening experience across the ten tracks. He has such a satisfyingly pleasing voice.

In many ways there’s not much to say about an album like this, other than to talk about how enjoyable it is. If you’re a fan of Bolt Thrower this is for you, if you’re a fan of Swedish death metal this is for you, if you’re a fan of old-school death metal in general this is for you. Basically, strap on your best war outfit and get ready to storm the beach, as Just Before Dawn have unleashed on onslaught of war metal that is very definitely for you.