Review Summary: While not stepping to far from a hard rock/metal effort Taking Dawn are turning heads with their debut album “Time To Burn”.
Taking Dawn’s debut album is an excellent example of the hard rock community’s new and up-coming talent. The music itself is catchy, fast paced and the lyrical content for the most part represents a fast, up-beat mood.
Members of the band show a considerable amount of talents of both their instruments and their creative talents shown within their songs. For the guitars the riffs are sharp and distinct, the melody lines are tasteful and full of flair, the electric guitar solos are vibrant and full of energy with various amounts of sweeps, bends, harmonics and other stages of guitar “wankery”. Some of the musical ideas may have been heard of before or heard similar in other groups but Taking Dawn are not exactly pushing the boundaries of the music they represent. The ideas may have been used before but on “Time To Burn” they remain strong. The bass guitar may not appear to be doing anything special on the recording but keeps up beat and the mood strong and hugs the guitar lines well. The drum work on the album may not come to the fore-front of the listeners mind, but the role they play for Taking Dawn are more extensive an advanced than those of a conventional rock band. The drums are neat, fast paced, and the occasional fills and not overly used double bass work are of particular notice.
The album kicks off fast paced and furious with album title track “Time To Burn”. The guitar lines are strong, the melody lines are creative and it’s Taking Dawn hitting the listener at full force. A very positive way to start an album and an excellent way to present a debut album. This track and others have the same basic recipe: a quick tempo, tight electric guitar riffs, tasteful melody lines, songs showing raw amounts of energy.
“Time To Burn” displays some real gems including “Godless”, “Endlessly” and a definite highlight of the album i.e. “Fight Em’ With Your Rock” this track alone shows a level of raw energy any rock band would like to achieve. This track has by far the fastest tempo on the album.
Taking Dawn display a lot of energy throughout their debut album moving from rock, hard rock, power metal and classic metal influences, they show a lot of creative talent combining their personal influences to create a well balanced and thought of album. As a debut album many will have high hopes for Taking Dawn in all their future efforts.
Highlights Include: Time To Burn, Godless, Endlessly, and Fight Em’ With Your Rock.
