Unleashed - Dawn Of The Nine - review

Unleashed - Dawn Of The Nine - review

Cover image of the reviewed item
Band
Unleashed
Style
Death metal
Release date
April 24, 2015
Reviewer
7.0
7.4
Tracklist
01. A New Day Will Rise
02. They Came To Die
03. Defenders Of Midgard
04. Where Is Your God Now?
05. The Bolt Thrower
06. Let The Hammer Fly
07. Where Churches Once Burned
08. Land Of The Thousand Lakes
09. Dawn Of The Nine
10. Welcome The Son Of Thor!
A review by
Doc G.
April 23, 2015
It's been nine, count 'em, nine years since we've seen any color on an Unleashed album cover. What does this mean? Are Unleashed taking us down a path they've never taken us before? Are we going to [metaphorically] taste and smell brand new melodeath flavors and aromas?

The short answer is no. Most definitely not. If you thought otherwise, you've probably never listened to Unleashed before. Even if you haven't, the sound is familiar enough, and they've been plugging away at it with steady monotony for years now. The same accessible aggression, chugging riffs and quasi-clear grunts shouting out equally clear (occasionally to the point of pandering) lyrics. Yup, this is well-tread ground.

...But that doesn't make it bad. Sure, DOTN doesn't rejuvenate Unleashed's sound the same way All Shall Fall did for Immortal, but it's not a throwaway album. One thing you can always hand to Unleashed, in spite of stagnancy, dumb lyrics and occasionally sounding like a poor-man's Amon Amarth, they always, ALWAYS come up with fantastic riffs that just dig in to your psyche on some primal level and stay there. That quality still remains with their newest effort.

For those of you well versed in Unleashed, this feels like a Frankenstein of the previous two albums: Odalheim was wall-to-wall destruction, while Yggdrasil was a little more atmosphere-focused, built around melodies rather than rhythm. Of course, those distinctions are subtle to the point of being hardly noteworthy...so really, Dawn Of The Nine is simply another Unleashed album, albeit a varied, well-balanced one to the seasoned ear.

It's hard to imagine die-hard Unleashed fans getting bored with them this late in the game, so Dawn Of The Nine will come as a welcome addition to the catalog. For the casual listener and new comers, you'll be just as happy sticking with your copy of Hammer Battalion.
Written on 23.04.2015 by
Written on 23.04.2015 by
Former EIC. Now just a reviewer guy.

Comments

Comments: 7 Visited by 210 users
Bad English
Tage Westerlund

Posts: 64338


Permalink
23.04.2015 - 11:23
Bad English
Tage Westerlund

Posts: 64338


I disagree this sounds better as All Shall perish for DM stabdarts ... good album as far I heard songs and samples
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Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"

I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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Posts: 1506
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23.04.2015 - 14:38

Posts: 1506
Remember listening to the first few albums by these guys, thought they were pretty decent death metal works. Not heard any of the latter material, is it worth checking it out?
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flightoficarus
Stamp Tramp

Posts: 1127


Permalink
23.04.2015 - 16:27
Rating: 6
flightoficarus
Stamp Tramp

Posts: 1127


If the first song they released is any indication of the rest of the album, this review seems to be a very fair assessment.
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Posts: 285
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23.04.2015 - 17:37

Posts: 285
I didn't really love the preview song but the previous couple albums were pretty good. I imagine this will be pretty good. I also really don't like the production on the preview song. Almost no distortion on the guitars super dry sounding.
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Posts: 78


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23.04.2015 - 19:14

Posts: 78


Odalheim was great, but this is just average. wtf happen!!
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Posts: 212


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26.04.2015 - 02:12
Rating: 9
The album sounds juicy to me, I think I'll get a copy after my next paycheck
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Posts: 2
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13.05.2019 - 06:13

Posts: 2
This album grows on you with subsequent listens, after a while you'll begin to realise what a great album it is.
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