There was a time when US was the homeland of heavy metal music. Big names like Metallica, Megadeth, Death, Slayer, Cannibal Corpse and many other countless number of bands stemmed from the west. But not often do we find a good band from the States today. Whereas, Europe has started to produce many good bands and everyone has turned his/her ears to the new sound of heavy metal music. A lot of new genres have been formed. In fact, every band has got something original to offer and we can see a lot of skilled musicians with some really innovative minds.

One such band, rising from a small country like Lithuania, is Awakening Sun. Formed in the spring of 2011, led by guitarist, lyricist, songwriter, main composer and producer, Ernestas Skripkiünas, the band released its first full length album within months off its formation. The album is titled “Sold Out” and it was released in December 2011. The band fabricates its sound from various genres like melodic death metal, technical death metal and doom metal. The line-up of the band is as follows: Ernestas Skripkiūnas on vocals and guitars, Povilas Laurinaitis on bass, Vilius Stašauskas on drums and Denis Bubel on guitars.

The lyrical theme of the album is presumably ‘the decaying world’ (not just environmentally but socially too). Songs like ‘Tomorrow Might Never Come’, ‘Blind Sheep’ and ‘Whirl Of Death’ talk about holding us responsible for rotting our planet and we would pay for it by losing the planet and consequently our lives. Whereas ‘Brutal War’, ‘No More Blood’ and ‘Imposters’ talk about the ill activities humans do. The artwork shows a perfect illustration of the message being delivered by the songs.

Now looking at the album from a musical point-of-view.....

The album kicks off with a lightning track titled ‘Brutal War’. The song starts with a progressive intro and transmutes into a fast tempo-ed song as the drums enter the song. The song has a plain structure, doesn’t have many transitions. The progressions in the song are pretty simple and catchy which make the song a really good start for the album. The percussion's on the track is pretty remarkable, especially the double kick work. It also has solos consisting of mostly arpeggios before the last chorus. One thing to be noticed throughout the album is that even if the album is self-produced, the sound has been tailored precisely and proves to be a good example of the proverb, “Keep it simple and good.”

‘Own Master’, the second track from the album, portrays multiplicity of the genres. We can hear some technical death metal riffs during the first minute of the song which change into a doom metal progression in the pre-chorus part and switching back technical stuff via a short djent-ish bridge. The solo at about 3:20 has been nicely composed and has a lot of depth along with some speed and in totality, this makes for another nice track on the album. The song is followed by ‘Tomorrow Might Never Come’. Frankly speaking, I feel this song lacks a little punch. There are many tempo changes, a lot of riffs but yet the song sounds quiet monotonous and tedious. The vocals during the verses sound quiet dull. But the climax of the song is attention-grabbing as Ernestas hits the song with his robust solo which gives some momentum to the song.

The next song, ‘Blind Sheep’ fires up with a heavy riff panned on the left speaker which is joined with another guitar panned on the right speaker, compelling an innate will to headbang in the listener. The song is heavier than the rest of the songs and livelier too (musically of course). Whereas in ‘No More Blood’, the band returns to the melodic side with dark progressions, which set a barbarous air about the song. The song consists of some good drum-lines and the bass-lines are nicely laid with the rhythm. The song has two solos, which do not exhibit any complexities in scales yet are heart-bleeding and hold the emotions of the song even when they become fast. They are definitely my favorites off of the album.

‘Imposters’ and ‘Whirl Of Death’ are two of the darker songs of the album. Both the songs have some brutal progressions accompanied with some good deep growled vocals but somehow the songs are not very appealing and become a bit lackluster. The bridge at 2:45 in ‘Imposters’ has a slight technical groove which doesn’t gel with the mood of the song. Despite some good progressions, both the songs are not which we can call tour de force.

The band gets back some drive with ‘Under Control’. The intro bass line followed by a cult down-picked riff is a fine example of some excellent song-writing. The tempo changes and transitions have been neatly crafted and vocals clamp the mood of the song well. The next song, ‘Chimera’, which begins with awe-inspiring down-picked progression, is about a person asking for wings to fly and transcend into a new world. The feeling has been perfectly implied in vocals. The sync between all the instruments in the chorus is perfect and they have a good grip on the emotions of the song. Different sections of the song have been nicely connected by well-composed bridges.

‘Awaken The Sun’ adequately sums up both the theme and music of the album. We can hear some crazy drum-lines in the song which match with the machine gun riffage executed during the verses of the songs. Guitars are good throughout the song; the harmonies support the vocals and the solo amplifies the feelings of the song. Most of the compositions are fairly good, but at times songs sound monotonous and dull. The recording quality was excellent for a self-produced album and the tones of the guitars had been impressively selected and the panning was good yet the deep-growled vocals were somewhat plain and without any effects. In my opinion, some usage of delay and reverb on vocals could have ameliorated the quality of the songs.

Summing it all up in a nutshell, I believe that the album is very good for a debut and recommended for all kinds of death metal fan. We look forward to more work by the band.

Rating: 7/10

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Reviewed By,

Varun Khatri