Dawn Ray'd : "the Unlawful Assembly"

This band from North England  are equal amounts angry and atmospheric with folk elements draped in-between. When they do five into their anger it is genuine black metal. The vocals are in a similar static white noise scream as say Deafheaven. The songs are very concise. They squeeze folk melodies over the most furious of their blasting moments. By the time they hit the third song we are getting a more straight forward blasting attack that lacks the more defining qualities that gives this band their sense of identity. In other words it sounds like all other generic black, perhaps with a slightly slicker coating of ice over it. The first shift in dynamics is is jarring right turn into folk with clean singing on "A Litany of Cowards" which finds the lyrics being more political than I would like. I am better with this being screamed as it's not as in my face. Not that the singing is that great to begin with, his voice is rather meek. Considering that these guys used to be a screamo band I would think the singing would be better.

You can hear the shades of their old emo past in the folky intro of "the Ceaseless Arbitrary Choice" .  They do win me over with the lower goth vocals toward the end of the song. Why were they no singing like that all along, I might have put up with their peace and love hippy lyrics.After this they prove that even a screamo band can make run of the mill black metal . It's not until they bring in the violin that they really sound interesting .  It more screaming about how they can not tolerate intolerance, which I guess is some kind of millennial logic of rather than be ok with other people having beliefs I don't agree with I am going to have a temper tantrum. This is what happens when you have a generation of parents who think it's not ok to spank your kids.  By this time in the album their blast blast beats have bored me.

"Island of Cannibal Horses" sounds like it will be a death metal song but its not. I do like when bands scream over clean guitars and mellow arrangements. This does call them out again for their emo past, but I can deal with it here. The singing is a little better when they close out the album with " A Thought Ablaze" it sounds like a lighter version of Death in June, I hope these kids don't know their politics or they would really get their panties in a wad. The lyrics really ruined this for me, but while there are moments and even a few good songs they have not really exceeded expectations . I will round this down to a 7, I think they do have potential, it is just not fully manifesting here.