This is US band Dawnbringer’s seventh album. They play Heavy Metal.
Night of the Hammer has a strong 70’s vibe and mixes Heavy Metal with a good dose of ancient Doom to create something that’s drenched in the past yet remains potent today.
The brittle-sounding production lends the proceedings a proto-Blackened aura and enhances the feelings of authenticity and sheer audiophile-esque pleasure that this record gives off.
The important thing about a band like this is the quality of the songwriting and Dawnbringer are not found wanting in this regard. These are simple songs that are all the more powerful and effective for it.
Each track is stripped-back Heavy Metal as raw and emotive as when the genre was born. The rocking riffs and solid drums breathe life into the songs. The bass provides a firm bedrock for the band to build on and the solos and leads add colour. The odd Black Metal influence raises its head, mainly on Not Your Right, and strangely only sounds a little out of place.
The band play upbeat, downbeat and all kinds of mid-paced riffs in-between. The songs have plenty of darker moments but Dawnbringer are not afraid to sound chirpier on occasion also. True, it never reaches Power Metal levels of happiness or Folk’s sometime’s jauntiness, but they can certainly sound brighter than a lot of Metal when the need arises. Xiphias is a great example of this.
The music and exceptional vocals definitely have a 70’s vibe but the album also transcends this to have a certain timeless quality about it.
This is a most enjoyable album when you want a Classic Metal sound that harkens back to the time when Metal was born.
Wonderbox Metal 