NEWLY MINTED: BEFORE THE DAWN, ALLEGAEON, AND THE ODIOUS

In this post, I’m collecting three newly minted pieces that went into circulation yesterday or this morning, like shiny gold coins that dropped into our grimy claws: a new video from Finland’s Before the Dawn; a new song from Colorado’s Allegaeon (pronounced uh-lee-juhn, in case you forgot), and a new lyric video from Portland’s The Odious. Here we go:

BEFORE THE DAWN

Such a coincidence. Earlier today, I posted a review of a new EP from a UK band — Twilight’s Embrace — that reminded me of Before the Dawn’s style of goth/doom-infused melodeath, and lo and behold, it’s not long before I get an e-mail from DGR alerting me to this new video. It’s for a song called “Pitch-Black Universe” from the band’s forthcoming album Rise of the Phoenix (out on April 27 via Nuclear Blast).

The song is what we’ve come to expect from Before the Dawn — jabbing riffs, sweeping/swirling guitars, bearlike vocals, broken glass, fires burning, the drip of blood, pitch blackness. The video is sweet, too. It’s immediately after the jump.
 

 

Next . . .

ALLEGAEON

We seem to be on a dark melodic death metal kick, because the next entry is a new song that premiered yesterday on Lambgoat from Allegaeon. We’ve been high on this band for a while and have written about them frequently (most recent here, when they debuted the first song from their new album, Formshifter, which will hit the streets on Metal Blade when May 8 arrives).

The new song is called “Iconic Images”. It’s a gun-blast of this band’s more technically oriented, more progressive take on dark melodeath, and it does nothing but confirm that Formshifter is going to be one of the year’s highlights. Let this flashy guitar-driven music scramble your brains while that thooming bass and blitzkrieg drum attack unzip your guts.
 

 

And now for something completely different . . .

THE ODIOUS

This is a Portland (Oregon) band to whom we should have paid attention long before now. They released two EPs last year — The Gynecic Curse and That Night A Forest Grew — both of which are available for download on Bandcamp on “name your price” terms.

It appears the band are now at work on a debut full-length, to be titled Joint Venture. Earlier this year, they loaded a new song on SoundCloud called “A Sheep In Wolf’s Clothing”, and now they’ve unveiled a lyric video for this song.

It’s a 9+-minute kaleidoscope of prog-minded craziness that vaults from one tempo and style to another. After a jagged, galvanic start, it smooths into an extended, slow, heavily instrumental segment that includes jazz, funk, prog-metal, psychedelia, and a bit of mathcore. But there’s a lot more . . . though I’m not going to try to diagram it any further. Better for you to just hear this fascinating song for yourself.
 

 

The band tell us that this song will soon become available for download. You can find out more about The Odious on Facebook.