Lores is the debut album from Grunge/Doom/Stoner Metallers New Dawn Fades with the band showing a particular fondness for the Nineties Hard Rock and Heavy Metal scenes. There’s some deceiving modern day Sludge Metal passages to spice things up a bit with New Dawn Fades traversing their way through a multitude of different musical themes and progressive sound structures. The vocals from GFA have a decidedly raw energy to them which almost have a PUNK ROCK element to them. 

The early stages of the album appear to be inspired by the likes of Monster Magnet, DOWN, Corrosion Of Conformity, High On Fire and Soundgarden. The band never stays in the same musical direction for long with them quite eager to journey through as many different styles as possible on tracks such as Villains Come To Light, Meet Me At Sundown and True Til Death. With the band willing to add different genres of music into the mix there’s also a classic Heavy Metal style forming which moves the band even further back in time to the era of Mercyful Fate and other bands of that ilk.

There’s a constant swagger and aggressive dynamic to New Dawn Fades music throughout with a stripped back Blues Rock atmosphere allowing the heavier genres to run amok and battle each other for musical dominance whilst that Blues Groove is the real building glue holding everything together. It’s a great creative tactic to use especially when New Dawn Fades play some intense screeching guitars along the way before returning to a classic style of Doom, Grunge and Stoner Metal.

Lores isn’t the cleanest of productions but that isn’t the point of the album as this allows the band to get down and dirty stripping back all of the modern day recording bullshit and just let the music do the talking. That’s not to say the production values are poor. They’re actually superb, allowing New Dawn Fades to play a great array of different styles of HEAVY ROCK that pays homage to the greats of the entire music scenes they’re influenced from but also allowing them to create their own great style of music along the way.

Lores is an action-packed riff-fest with the band releasing an album that sounds like a “GREATEST HITS” package and not just their debut album. They brilliantly capture the gritty aspect of the Nineties Hard Rock/Heavy Metal scene where music was way more dangerous compared to their mainstream counterparts. You can feel that fire, passion and emotional intensity on great tracks such as Souls, Dead Vultures, This Night and New Evil which perhaps contains some of the darkest and intense musical moments on the whole album. 

Some people may consider this album “TOO RETRO” for some but it’s got some epic modern day sounds which brilliantly bridges the gap between the last forty years of HEAVY ROCK down to a fine art. Lores is currently kicking up a storm within the underground scene and it’s not hard to see why. This is a spectacular record that offers superb entertainment which should mark New Dawn Fades as potential heavyweights of the scene in the years to come.