Review Summary: This new road for Dawnwalker holds its own set of opportunities and challenges. Best we prime ourselves for this variation.
It’s a bit of a worry to have a band you’ve grown near and dear to over years veer off into another musical sphere, bringing cheers to new ears while letting fears turn to fresh tears; at least for those who liked the old sound. Just imagine the sheer audacity of getting your audience to expect a certain style and not continue it through the rest of your project. Sometimes it’s just disappointing. This is what thousands of fans experienced during the debut of
Heritage, now over eleven years ago. This fact is relevant not only because
Dawnwalker takes inspiration from
Opeth but
House of Sand marks a significant change in their musical style. Going from a monolithic blackened post-metal signature to a sort of art rock & post metal album was sure to turn heads and spark discussion about the future of the band. Are they truly done with their old style or are they just taking a small detour?
While it’s certainly true that lead songwriter Mark Norgate had a different kind of vision in mind when creating this album, the differences between
House of Sand and past albums like Ages are not quite as vast as fans have talked them up to be. We know from
Dawnwalker’s Bandcamp page that they wanted to use minimal post-production details to get away from the computer-generated and overproduced crap in the music world. But let’s have a reality check, this is not anything new for the band as they have always utilized a more organic sound to great effect. Now accompanied by softer choruses and acoustic guitars, the structured builds, distorted riffage, and post-metal crescendos are still present here; along with the gritty, fuzzy guitar tones. Songs like “R.I.P.”, “Egypt”, and the closer “House of Sand II” do well at balancing their newfound progressive/art rock elements with their patented explosive metal climaxes.
Understandably, some may complain that this is not proper post metal since the songs do not provide enough time to let the flavors of the music truly marinate; a necessary component to a satisfying crescendo payoff. As opposed to the many 10+ minute tracks on
Ages,
House of Sand attempts to match what its predecessor did in 4-minute tracks. This album has some quality songs, but they just don’t hit as hard as they used to. Perhaps their new elements may make up for this deficit another way.
I’d say
House of Sand does, at least partially, benefit from the new incorporation of melancholic rock. For instance, some of the gloomy clean vocal choruses on this album are very melodic, particularly the main chorus on “False Doors”. It should also be said that a lot of the clean singing on this album along with most of the acoustic/piano rock passages are inspired by classic prog/art rock bands like
Radiohead,
Pink Floyd, and
Porcupine Tree. And these elements do a fine job of contrasting with
The Ocean-esque post metal riffs that usually conclude them.
This album is structured so that many of the main tracks are separated by spoken word dialogues of lavish, complacent suburbanites. This creates an overarching narrative of superficial opulence accompanied by deeper feelings of regret, decay, and inadequacy. It may be a bit too obvious to say, but the aesthetics of these dialogues in addition to the album cover of the frontal brick house portrait is enough to imply a resemblance with
Opeth’s
In Cauda Venenum. The musical commonality even grows when you get to the track “Coming Forth by Day” whose opening riffs, gutturals, and enveloping synths can easily trace back to
Opeth’s post-
Watershed material.
Whether these small changes are merely just a scenic route back to
Dawnwalker’s original style, or if the band has truly changed course to a new destination is yet to be seen. However, there is good material on this new road, we just have to have an open mind. It shouldn’t be too difficult as this new land is not quite as foreign as it may seem.
