Artist: Eden Wakes 
   Title: Darkest Before The Dawn
   Label: Rising Records

This is the debut album for this four-piece from Manchester, brought together by twin sisters who surprisingly don't sing, leaving that to one of their pair of male cohorts.  

For a debut, instead of wowing, they're just disappointing. Throughout the album the vocals are not backed by the music, but the other way round, making them seem at times and barely decipherable.  But they do have a catchy quality about them which cannot be denied, specifically with the memorable hooks.  Yet it feels more like a demo EP than an album, with the split between rock and metal too obvious, and seems to have been used as a skills showcase, rather than an album with any real coherence.  

The most annoying this is the obvious split between the rock and the metal.  'From Witness' onwards, the album appears to be slipping into thrash 'lite', with no real stand-out tracks.  The only decent track on the album is 'Fall Before Vermillion' and that is primarily because of the guitars and drums.  It still isn't truly memorable, or a song you would hear and think of them, instead the album makes me want to throw it in the bin and tell them to start again with a better mix of vocals overlaid on the music, not the other way round.  This failure ruins what could be a decent first effort and hopefully the second album will blow this out of the water.

Review by: Kerry H

1. Fortune Favours The Brave
2. Hide & Seek
3. Tunnel Vision
4. Twofold
5. Eulogy
6. Witness
7. Where Are The Vultures?
8. Faust Macabre
9. Fall Before Vermillion
10. Beyond The Forest

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