Band:	Mourning Dawn
Album:	For The Fallen...
Style:	Blackened doom metal
Release date:	May 2009

01. In Flanders Fields
02. God Damn The Sun
03. Sick
04. Epitaph
05. The Rivers Flow
06. For The Fallen
07. Dead Youth
08. Ashes

France's Black metal scene is still booming and blooming and new bands pop up seemingly every day. Mourning Dawn aren't exactly newcomers to the game, but with their post '00s birth date still a part of this Black metal revival, if we can call it that. Mourning Dawn and I have met before: with their self-titled debut album under their belt I saw them at the Dutch Doom Days VII and more recently at DelftDoom II – a few months after the release of their second album For The Fallen.... DelftDoom II saw a much tighter band for sure, so my expectations for the new album rose. And I was not disappointed.

It's not really hard to describe what these guys do. Their mixture of Black and Doom reminds of old Shining and old Forgotten Tomb with the sick guest vocals of Marquis to top it off. A massive iron wall complemented by wretched and deformed spikes, skewers and pegs. Not the prettiest sight, but a goddamn efficient tool after all. It's a plus that they don't rely solely on ugliness, the music gets a much sicker vibe from the dynamic tempos used. "God Damn The Sun" is a good example of this, the slow start and gradually increasing pace and tension result in a wicked symphony of hatred and madness. These guys understand constant hyper blasting does not equal intense music.

It's also not really hard to come up with a conclusion for For The Fallen. When the musicians are technically skilled, when the experience is there, when the band members known there classics and are capable of writing fresh music themselves, it is hard to come up with a bad album. For The Fallen may not be as good the originals, but it is a damn enticing piece nonetheless.