NEW DAWN FADES

Forever is the new EP from Hard Rock/Stoner Metallers New Dawn Fades who show their love and affection for other genres such as Heavy Metal, Psych Rock and Grunge. The EP offers a great style of Rock/Metal with a cool “throwback” kind of sound. There is a Classic Rock element to New Dawn Fades music but it’s quite aggressively modern with the band taking influence from a wide range of bands such as Soundgarden, C.O.C. Motley Crue, Judas Priest and even WASP. 

The three tracks on offer here have plenty of Stoner attitude to them with the music being action-packed and oozing style. The style may be too simplistic for some folks tastes but New Dawn Fades add a soulful blend of Blues Rock to their music which you can hear within the opening song True Till Death. It’s catchy and fast-paced with the band showcasing some highly energetic Thrash based grooves. 

The other two tracks This Night Has Closed My Eyes and New Moon offer a more Stoner based approach but with New Dawn Fades keeping with their Hard Rock creative influences for a killer sound. The vocals are wickedly entertaining with GFA reveling in frontman persona. The Night Has Closed My Eyes is perhaps the standout track here as it has the more interesting style of grooves that allows New Dawn Fades to play their own style of great sounds which touch upon the legendary NOLA scene which fans of DOWN will appreciate on the early stages of New Moon.

Forever is a great release from New Dawn Fades and with the promise of new material being recorded later this year, I expect this band to make a name for themselves within the Stoner Metal Underground Scene with perhaps a more substantial release. 

Excellent and Highly Recommended.

New Dawn Fades is a band growing, right before our eyes while I type this! This Philadelphia project started out as a one-dude show from Ritual Earth singer George Chamberlain. But something this good was bound to attract other playa’s, and rumor has it that a touring band is sharpening their hooks and riffs and getting ready to make some noise.

And tremendous noise it is! Out the gate with opener, True Till Death, us North Carolina folk will appreciate the solid Corrosion of Conformity foundation, including the rousing chorus. This is definitely a Philly take on Raleigh’s finest, the kind that can unite the North/South divide into fist-pumping harmony.

This Night Has Closed My Eyes continues the same vibe, but things open up quite a bit. I hear so many influences it’s hard to keep track, but damn, this just fricking works. It’s kinda like late 80’s rock before money and MTV got ahold of the LA scene and ruined the party. Full on balls-out swagger with one of the best vocal performances this year.

New Moon closes out this EP without taking the foot off the gas. I see a lot of other writers declaring how a full-length will be one of their most anticipated LP’s of the year, and I totally get this. New Dawn Fades digs deep into hard rock traditions and picks out the choicest slabs. George is a force to be reckoned with, and I hope it happens soon. And a small tour in North Carolina with the likes of Holy Roller and/or Lie Heavy would be epic.

New Dawn Fades is the new project from the lead singer GFA of the amazing Philly band Ritual Earth who are as awesome of doom band as they are people, given how active they are on Twitter and how cool they are to interact with. While Ritual Earth leans more towards stoner doom, the three tracks on the Forever EP are way more stoner grunge, and I am not sure there is an EP in recent memory I am more excited for a full length follow up because these three songs are next level great.

True Till Death kicks us off and we are firmly in Seattle territory here, with equal parts Soundgarden, My Sister’s Machine, and Gruntruck musically but have a more straight-ahead hard rock feel to the vocals. For some reason I can’t shake hearing influence from Testament’s The Ritual which I will wait to hear I am crazy for calling that out right from GFA himself. The middle of the track has a sort of stoner meets Loud Love breakdown which is the perfect bridge to this track across it’s five-plus minutes. 

This Night Has Closed My Eyes is up next, and we veer a bit more into the stoner rock territory with that trademark Philly sound that so many of us dig from that scene today. Riffs for days and a song The Age Of Truth and Zom (I know they are from Pittsburg…) would be proud of. I am hearing some COC love here too. New Moon has riffs for days and is familiar in a way, that there are probably 30 bands you can reference but sounds like exactly like none of them. I love the sludgy Melvins riff to end the track.

Talk about leaving you wanting more, Forever is a tease of the highest order. New Dawn Fades started out as a one-man (or a couple man) project that as of this writing has expanded into a full-on band that will tour and will produce one of the more anticipated full lengths we will get in 2023 or 2024. Get on the bandwagon now, because New Dawn Fades will be everyone’s favorite band very, very soon. 9/10

New Dawn Fades is a project from George Chamberlin (Ritual Earth, Autumn, etc.)—who handles everything sans drums herein—but while the band name and cover art might have you conjuring visions of Joy Division-influenced post-punk of some sort, in fact you'll be greeted by a brand of sludgy-yet-propulsive "stoner rock" that very much brings to mind Deliverance era C.O.C. I mean, if you can't imagine Pepper Keenan belting out the chorus of "True Till Death," I don't know what the hell you're listening to! Very strong writing all around: great riffs, forceful builds into memorable choruses, and relatively straightforward and to-the-point without being overly simplistic. I had been following this undertaking on Instagram and was curious, but I have to confess this is even better than I might have anticipated. Definitely looking forward to hearing more.

Three-song EP, Forever, is up on Bandcamp now, and I imagine it'll hit Spotify and such on or around its official release date of June 12.