Finland's True Black Dawn has set 30 July as the release date for its third album, Of Thick-Circling Shadows, which will come out through W.T.C. Productions. The first single/video, "Algol", is already out.
In 1992, when formed, True Black Dawn was Black Dawn years before a no-name American band threatened legal action. The band's debut album, Blood For Satan, arrived in 2001. When Come The Colorless Dawn surprisingly arrived in 2016, heralding the band's official return after a couple of teasing festival performances, True Black Dawn had largely drawn those two (challenging) poles together - and started on a new path - equally powerful and poignant.
And so it goes with Of Thick-Circling Shadows, an extrapolation/intensification of all that came before but with yet another subtle yet significant sonic shift: majestic, mesmerizing melody of a most purple-blue hue. It's not disingenuous to suggest that True Black Dawn here is drawing together that elusive balance (or at least juxtaposition) of the "classic" and the "modern". But that balance/juxtaposition isn't solely relegated to 90s melodicism/industrialized textures; across a bulk of Of Thick-Circling Shadows, the intensity is pushed well into the blastbeaten red - truly, founding vocalist Wrath sounds like he's being torn apart - while the subtlest dusting of synths tastefully heightens/deranges the vortextural violence circling that spidery, spiralling melodicism. Thus, the title makes sense, at least within the album's sonic aesthetics, and the psychedelically smeared artwork (courtesy of Jukka Siikala and Babalon Graphics) provides ample visual cues for what the listener is getting into when he enters these thick-circling shadows.
Does True Black Dawn, some 30-plus years after its formation, deliver its masterwork with Of Thick-Circling Shadows? Only time will tell... but the present is as dark and daunting as the album's namesake. Link
Of Thick-Circling Shadows tracklist:
01. Algol
02. The Depths of the Looking Glass
03. Night and Names
04. The Wind from the Red Cloud
05. Fish, Sin and Soma
06. Body-without-Soul
07. Worlds in the Mirror
08. Palace of Ash
09. Volaverunt
10. The End of Our Age
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"We're really into oxymorons and that sort of thing. Years and years ago, we came up with this idea—well, we didn't invent it, but we called it "happy sad"." - Matt James
"We were outsiders, and nobody knew what the fuck was going on. We just listened to this extreme music that nobody else liked, and that made us very strong..." - Mikael Stanne
"It's about humans; we are the high parasites. We feast on the earth and on all the things that the earth gives us. We don't just take a little bit, we take everything." - Aaron Stainthorpe
"This time we're trying not to complicate things too much. We want to have a simple message, but that doesn't mean there will be fewer arrangements or less songwriting..." - Pedro Paixão
