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Artist: Tunes of Dawn
Title: Goodbye Cruel World
Genre: Gothic Rock
Release Date: 8th October 2010
Label: Echozone



Album Review

“Deliberately” you may think, if you point out, that it’s the third official album in almost eleven years, what TUNES OF DAWN pull into the light of the world these days, but if you once have internalized the fondness for details and the intensity, that is wrapped in their music, you might guess why the five gentlemen from Berlin take up that time! So two years after ‘Of Tragedies in the Morning & Solutions in the Evening’ it’s now time to say ‘Goodbye cruel World’ and with a brand-new record deal in it’s back the band is presenting itself more unified, more melodious and... well, more relaxed than ever before. And as always the title of the album is a pointer to the typical cynicism and that twinkle of the band’s eye, what seems so refreshingly in that (otherwise) so serious genre! Here you can take “black humour” literally! But let’s celebrate the goodbye one by one...

Already the opening track ‘Suicide Challenge’ provides a rambling outline of the ingredients that TUNES OF DAWN used for their musical last meal. Solid walls of guitars, keys, that circulate between spherical and psychedelic temptation, impelling drums and the haunting vocals of Hagen Schneevoigt, which own an agreeable variety (located somewhere in the spectrum between Ville Valo and Peter Steele). ‘Refuse Resist’ lines up seamlessly and shines with an enjoyable dualism of staccato guitars and layered melodies in the thicket of the sound. Followed by ‘Upon my Grave’, that is, without fail, the catchiest song of the album. A pleasing hookline, sensitive vocals and a frisky chorus - unfortunately I can’t choke the feeling that I have heard this once before, somewhere from northern regions! A really nice song (despite the vocoder!), but maybe a bit to less TUNES OF DAWN!

But already the next track, named ‘A Warm Sigh At 6°C’, wipes every chagrin away! A velvet and bittersweet piece of melancholy cleverly arranged and well thought out. My personal highlight! ‘Tonight’s Decision’ leads us far out on the black ice of the band’s witty playground. In a kind of a radio play the band deals with a slightly different form of the hamlet-theme, situated in an unusual area like a bar-toilet. What kind of decision it’s about, you have to find out for yourself! Next is a cover of ZEROMANCER’s ‘Cupola’, what is cleverly interwoven in the albums main mood by filtering out the electronic components for laying down some Steele-like erotic  vibes down in a bed of guitars and majestic keyboards. ‘Little Darkness’ is quickening the pace again and attracts by its straight drums, shortly before we reach the title track of the album. An almost punk-like rhythm, cheerful keyboards and happily wailing guitars - right in that track you can feel in the plainest way the invigorating witticism and the irony in the interplay of tunes and words.

With reaching ‘With the Moon Comes the End’ we also seem to have reached the musical climax of the album. An eight minute epic divided in several acts. From the gloomy doom-like heaviness via the piano-passage through to the retro-style guitar solo - a maze for genre-lovers! At the end a sudden discontinuity crushes in the homogeneity of the album, cause we are served acoustic versions of the songs ‘Divine’ and ‘If I die Today’ (from the debut ‘How is this going to end’), which enchant by the proof what talented musicians those gentlemen are and that the band is able to create coherent atmosphere and emotional profundity even without distortions and other artificial gimmicks.

Conclusion: With ‘Goodbye cruel World’, TUNES OF DAWN succeeded a beautiful and moving album, what gleams a bit too un-creased and slicky at some moments, but doesn’t fail its desired effect of a bitter-melancholic gravity in it’s unity and variety.


Tracklist

01. Suicide Challenge
02. Refuse Resist
03. Upon My Grave
04. A Warm Sigh At 6°C
05. Tonight's Decision
06. Cupola
07. Little Darkness
08. Goodbye Cruel World
09. With The Moon Comes The End
10. Divine (Acoustic)
11. If I Die Today (Acoustic)


Line-up

Hagen Schneevoigt – Vocals, Bass
René Gödde – Guitars
Gunter Büchau – Keyboards / Synth
Martin Schorlemmer – Drums


Website

http://www.tunesofdawn.com/


Cover Picture




Rating

Music: 7
Sound: 10
Total: 8.5 / 10


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