Band:	Unleashed
Album:	Dawn Of The Nine
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	April 24, 2015
A review by:	Doc G.

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!

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.