Beyond Dawn - Pity Love 1995

To this day this album still sits well apart from any similar artists that I find it hard to keep familiar with the album. Its the perfect step taken after the prior ep being a bit more developed in the dreary and abysmal department with a vivid parlay into more unique playing, arrangement and atmosphere. The album is good at towing the line between never galloping too gallantly and trudging along heavily and sluggishly. I find a lot of maturity in the more consistent nature of Pity Love as the band finds a more bombastic and powerful inertia to their doom trodden 90's rock sound which incorporates several electronic elements to the fold. As a debut this album is a good indication of great things to come, yet dissimilar to anything else in their discography apart from the EP.
In a recent interview with Espen (the singer) an interviewer called his voice detached and distant. I thought this was as accurate a description I could muster, but along with it I would say there's a discouraged, and almost mocking tone about his sultry and underexerted style of singing. The way his vocals, the guitars and horns mesh and harmonize on all of these songs is what I reach in the cupboard for when I have the Beyond Dawn munchies. He really is a unique singer maybe more for what he doesn't do than what he does, but I have a hard time tearing the guy down when he can be so different without relying on cheesy melodies or being a memorable caricature of himself. Come to think of it a lot of what I like about Beyond Dawn is their confident reluctance to be appealing by normal means. Every instrument lends itself to the overall "sold as-is" demeanor of Beyond Dawn.

The guitar work never overbearing or inaccessible is intricate and tasteful. Sometimes clean, clever pedals and production give a vast effect to what could easily be somewhat monotonous playing given the repetitive nature of this mid paced and "doom-esque" music. Either way, I give a lot of merit to this band for giving so much life and power to the sour and plodding music they breath life into. Ive never heard music utilized to put such urgency and strain on an imminent depraved state of consciousness.

Pity Love is where most from the metal community step into Beyond Dawn's realm, but I find it merely the first of several significant full lengths from this band, and a great access point to the rest of their albums.