At Dawn

Around 7 - 8 years ago I was looking for bands with a sound similar to Suidakra, and Craving was one of the top recommendations. This got my interest and listened their first album, and while I found it enjoyable, sadly didn't give them enough attention and Craving disappeared from my radar for plenty of time. Since they recently released a new album I decided to revisit both their second and third albums. Long short story: I was not disappointed at all.

Compared to their homonym album, 'At Dawn' has a much more solidified style and shows that Craving quickly worked around this to show their identity. For a start, this definitely reminds me of Suidakra, specially 'Emprise to Avalon', 'Lays from Afar' and 'Signs for the Fallen', which I consider their better albums. Yet, Craving it's too far to be considered a clone of the aforementioned band.

The opener 'Мик' and the second track 'Sons of the Rebellion' will give you a general idea of the sound of the album: Fast paced melodic death metal with a small black metal dose, energetic blast beats, a mix between harsh and clean heroic vocals, and last but not least, acustic folk interludes (or intros) with a clear Ensiferum influence. But fear not, the album as a whole doesn't feel formulaic or too predictable as other more known melodic death/folk metal acts. This takes us to Craving's strongest point, the songwriting and overall flow of the music feels authentic enough and really well built. Every track is loaded with memorable folkish melodies and riffs, transitioning between each other constantly without becoming tiring, my personal favorite blend is present in 'Dance with the Wind'.

The use of keyboards is very modest in some of the tracks, adding some flavour to the atmosphere instead of being the leading instrument (for example 'In die Nacht hinein' and 'Scharwze Flügel'). While I'm not adverse against synth-driven metal (I enjoy most of Summoning's work), I must say that this album is a refreshing air in the style. Craving focused on giving their melodies that folk feeling instead of simply slapping a synth to emulate different instruments and calling it a day.

Now about the lyrics, this is also an interesting point as they talk about varied themes, ranging from fantasy taking inspiration from 'A Song of Ice and Fire' ('Targaryen Wrath'), poems by Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev ('Мик' and 'Сказания о святой Ольге') to a more psychological and personal approach ('Garden of Bones'). I also give more credit to the band as making an album with more than two languages without being disjointed or full of grammatical atrocities (I'm looking at you Artas and your song 'Bastardo') is not a small feat. A small downside of the album is that some moments are filled with too much lyrics and some clean vocals can be somewhat awkward, best example I can give is in the first minutes of 'Schwarze Flügel", which I would have prefered to be more instrumental. But still, this didn't ruin the whole experience for me.

In conclusion, this is a well constructed and memorable album that I'll recommend to every Suidakra/Ensiferum fan and anyone who has some thirst for melodic death/folk metal that doesn't sound like Eluveitie at all. Craving have been working meticulously and I hope that they get more attention.