Band:	Dawn Of Solace
Album:	The Darkness
Style:	Doom metal, Gothic metal
Release date:	May 26, 2006
A review by:	Jeff

01. Dying Daylight
02. Wings Of Darkness Attached On The Children Of The Light
03. I Was Never There
04. Dead Air
05. I Am Chaos, I Am Destruction
06. Winter Song
07. Wrath Of Gods Amongst Us
08. Avalanche

"The Darkness" is the first album of Dawn Of Solace one of the side projects of Tuomas Saukkonen (Before The Dawn). Between Doom Metal and Gothic, this album is a lovely piece of melancholic music and I really think that all the Metalheads who like to listen to bands like Swallow The Sun should have a look on it because they shouldn't be disappointed.

If you like to listen to really melodic Doom Metal and of course Gothic music, I really think that you should try the first album of Dawn Of Solace. A bit like the last Katatonia's albums and a bit like Swallow The Sun, Dawn Of Solace plays a really dark and melancholic music which however doesn't lack of rhythm (sometime we have clean or Death vocals). It's dark and sad yes, but it's not extremely slow like with the Funeral Doom bands. Actually Dawn Of Solace even doesn't play real Doom or if it's Doom it's a really easy of access and commercial one and it will be easy for you to remember the choruses and melodies of this release. All in all "The Darkness" is a lovely album of Dark Metal, there is maybe nothing revolutionary in this album but it's solid and well done and I think that the fans of the genre will like it a lot.

Well produce sometime heavy with real Metal riffs or some other time a bit more folk with acoustic guitars and with a nice performance of the musician(s) I don't have anything negative to say about this release. Plus I really like the general ambiance of the album which is dark and sad but also really powerful, all the songs of the album are real machines and will probably be excellent live if Tuomas decides one day to play his songs on stage.

Without being really original, "The Darkness" is all but not disappointing. This album is recommended to all the people who use to listen to Dark Melodic Metal, really you'll be able to listen to some little jewels ("Wrath Of Gods Amongst Us" is one of them). Tuomas Saukkonen is a really good compositor and I hope that he will be able to produce such kind of albums in the future. Dawn Of Solace is a nice surprise.