Before the Dawn - Soundscape of Silence (2008)

Although I had watched a video of Before the Dawn on youtube before, my first real experience with the band was during my recent visit to Helsinki, Finland where they were playing in front of me at a club named Dom Helsinki. I have to say they made such a strong impression on me that evening that I made it my life's work to hunt down one of their albums before leaving Finland and fortunately on the following day I did come across this album at a place called, 'Music Hunter' and I'm quite glad because, 'Soundscape of Silence' is fantastic.

Before the Dawn is essentially the solo project of Finnish multi musician Tuomas Saukkonen (w/ session members) who brought the band into existence back in 2000. Since the bands formation he's released five albums with his most recent being this years, 'Deathstar Rising,' but let's hop back to the fourth album first.

On Soundscape of Silence, Saukkonen essentially blends highly melodic death metal in the typical Gothenburg Sweden style (think older In Flames & Soilwork) with Gothic metal leanings quite a bit similar to Sentenced. So, in a way not necessarily the most original thing but what really sets this band apart from others and makes it excellent is Tuomas' guitar work which is quite melodic and full of character. His riffs and solos are filled with emotion which I honestly found to be interesting since at one moment I was full of energy and headbanging and then later on he was hitting my ears with these melancholic atmospheric riffs that were just immense. Also to be fair I'd say he's far more skilled and diverse with his playing than most Swedish melo death guitarists, but I needed to make a comparison to something earlier.

Besides the great riff work there's also some airy sounding keyboards and acoustic guitars present on this record, which obviously just make it all the better and also Norwegian session member, Lars Eikind's (Winds, Age of Silence, Khold) cleanly sung vocals work perfectly alongside Tuomas' growled voice.

In the end if tremendously melodic and catchy atmospheric death/Gothic metal is your thing then I absolutely implore you to investigate this fantastic Finnish band. As for myself, I'll keep rockin' this one for weeks to come and before long I assure you I'll be purchasing the rest of their discography.