Chuck Schuldiner Project

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Meridian Dawn-The Mixtape


The Mixtape EP cover art

Meridian Dawn is an extremely nifty death metal project who have a complicated backstory I'm not even going to bother getting into. That being said, Meridian Dawn are a riff heavy melodic death metal group reminiscent of titans like At the Gates, men who stand forth and shout. These guys are not following the rules laid down by their peers, instead they are playing incredibly melodic music that is also fast and brutal, the sort of thing that makes my grim heart sing. The songwriting on The Mixtape is simply stellar and simply goes to prove that this is not an album to be missed.

Part of what makes The Mixtape so darned interesting for me is the way that Meridian Dawn are not afraid to honor those who came before. Asides from featuring tributes to both Type-O Negative and Fear Factory (Both of which are very well executed) the band also manages to get a feature in from Jake of Amaranthe fame. Simply losing yourself in the high quality of the riffs in this material is a blast. The Mixtape operates on multiple layers and is compact enough that it's easy to listen to it many times in a short period, making the powerful messages behind the music easily digestible. Opening yourself up to a record this finely crafted is a pleasure, filling my heart with a love for thrashy melodeath slaughter.

In the end, The Mixtape is only five songs long, so it's hard to really wax poetic about it. But it shows us a sort of inhuman beauty behind the magic of this band and provides good evidence for their upward trajectory. Meridian Dawn understand their craft and their unique brand of metal is the kind of thing which will profit for years to come. Unafraid to mix in one or two mainstream elements to an otherwise Gothenburg derived sound, I think that Meridian Dawn and their international band members have a shot to be this generations At the Gates.

Find them on Facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/meridiandawn/app_204974879526524

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