Crawling out of southern California is d-beat mob A New Dawn with their five track demo release, kindly released for free online but also with a limited physical run coming soon. The demo is 15 minutes of slick, modern d-beat a la Protestant and Swedish crust. With a pristine production job, A New Dawn’s demo sounds huge. They’ve taken the typical crust and d-beat blueprint and the mandatory influences of Discharge and Doom, but also utilise a whole host of modern hardcore approaches. It’s a tactic that can either fall short or, if executed carefully and precisely, be a powerful and exciting listen. A New Dawn clearly do the latter, sculpting out a solid and altogether satisfying demo release to whet appetites for the future.
The intro track opens proceedings and lays down an impressive salvo to begin. A short instrumental track, it sets the tone straight away with some unnerving clean guitar tones before launching into the fierce “Under Siege”. Its energy and pure ferocity is palpable from the off and then there’s “Nightmares”, which takes a great deal of influence from Wolfbrigade and effectively so. Thankfully, A New Dawn aren’t just the sum of their influences, rather a powerhouse of modern d-beat that gracefully tips its hat to those inspirations.
The production work on this demo is just right too. The necessary spacious mixing has allowed the guitars to tower high above, really dominating the sound of the whole demo while the bilious vocals are spat out all over it.
“Parasite”, the longest song, starts off with some deathly slow intro riffing that eagerly builds into another burst of crust-ridden mayhem and they’re off again concluding with the title track for the final torrent of belligerence.
A New Dawn certainly aren’t doing anything new here and they very much stick to the trusty path in many regards with this demo. Sure, it’s nothing monumental but it’s no nonsense d-beat and there’s a healthy vim and vigour found within these five tracks that demand your attention.
The demo can be downloaded for free from A New Dawn’s Bandcamp or a physical copy can be bought at their shows. More details on their Facebook.
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