Band:	Runemagick
Album:	Dawn Of The End
Style:	Death doom metal
Release date:	December 2007
A review by:	Deadsoulman

01. Dawn Of The End
02. Voyage To Desolation
03. Chthonic Temple Smoke
04. Retaliation
05. Volcano Throne
06. The Circle
07. Magus Of Fire
08. Sabbatum Ad Infinitum

Talk about a prolific band… Since the release of their first full-length in 1998, Sweden’s Runemagick have released 11 albums, including this one. Even with this rate of over 1 album per year, most people (including this humble reviewer) have managed to overlook this band. Typically, there is always one smart person to throw the name in a conversation about doom death bands, but usually the only reply this person gets – if any - is something along the lines of “oh yeah, the Swedish doom death band? Never listened to them. But I know the name!”. Which, given the quality of “Dawn Of The End”, is very unfortunate indeed.

As you may have gathered from the confused and highly uninformative introduction above, Runemagick play doom metal with a death metal edge. Don’t think doom metal as in “throw a chord, leave the room, have a shower, go shopping and come back right in time for the second part of the riff”. Runemagick’s music is much more dynamic than that. In fact, Runemagick retained this particularity from their early death metal years that all their music is based on the Riffs. They worship the Fearsome Riff God, so much that they dedicated their entire career to the search of the ultimate, perfect Riff, and every release is a new step towards the completion of this quest. “Dawn Of The End” is a collection of the most polished Riffs the band has come up with over the years. It is so efficient that the sparse growls, while being absolutely not bad, almost break the momentum created by the building up of the music (with the notable exception of “Retaliation”). The pace seldom varies even on the 11+ minute-long tracks, and yet “Dawn Of The End” never gets boring or repetitive. This is all due to the songwriting talent of a doom band whose approach clearly remind of old-school thrash and death bands: no nonsense, just great, groovy, chunky, neck-breakingly headbangable music the way it should be, enhanced by a perfectly fitting dirty production.

The ultimate, perfect Riff is not to be found on this album. This is a very good thing, because it means that Runemagick will have to carry on with their quest and therefore will have to release even more music, undoubtedly as great as “Dawn Of The End”. Meanwhile, I certainly enjoin any doom, death and thrash fans, and more generally any sensible person who worships the Riff, in other words any metal fan – yes, that is you, poor mortals! - to bow down and adore the Messiahs of the Fearsome Riff God, Runemagick the Great. Thanks for your attention.