Band:	Dawn Of Retribution
Album:	The Plan To End Humanity
Style:	Death metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	May 2010

01. Ascension Of The Shadow
02. Day Zero
03. Minutes Of The Millennia
04. The Wake Of Devastation
05. Against The World
06. Merciless
07. The Plagues That Followed
08. Alive And Screaming

This album was written for fans of metalcore and death metal, pure and simple. So here we have another instance of what is known to be called deathcore. It's a good album and a strong debut effort to be sure, but it lacks creativity and the band's influences seem almost too influential. They closely follow the footsteps of other bands such as Suicide Silence, Whisteria Cottage and The Black Dahlia Murder.

The band is described as death metal with thrash and black undertones, but I'm not able to pick out much of the thrash in here. I think this is just a result of everything new being labelled a part of the thrash revival these days. If anything, Dawn Of Retribution is more heavily influenced by hardcore as demonstrated by the extended breakdowns and vocal style. The best track on the album by far is 'Day Zero', and if you are looking to hear more of the black metal influence, I suggest starting with 'The Wake of Devastation'.

Clint Williams has good range with his growls and there's a skill there that shouldn't go unnoticed. Every time I start to get into the music, it's just more of the same. Most of my interest fell back to the instrumentals in an attempt to escape the continuous growling. Not to say that it's unbearable or poorly executed, it just seems oddly arranged and becomes more of a distraction if anything.

They have a knack for starting songs out epically and then they just fade off into mediocrity as they progress, giving the songs a cramped feeling - like they've put everything into the blender and just haphazardly pieced it together. The album would flow better if they'd given more space for each part to be fully appreciated. Dawn Of Retribution has demonstrated they can do things well, they just need to extend the sexy technical work and mad breakdowns and stop drawing out the filler. My conclusion is this: The band was eager to showcase their talent, but in the process, just tried to jam everything and anything on The Plan to End Humanity, sacrificing much of the continuity and direction of the album.

It seems pretty clear what the band is good at, and as with many debut albums, they stuck with it and didn't deviate. Unfortunately, a little deviation is probably what they needed most here. Dawn of Retribution has a lot of skill, but when you're striking out at an already pretty saturated deathcore and death metal scene, you need to be either exceptional at mimicking what everyone has already done or edgy enough to try something new in the mix. I enjoyed the album enough, but it never stood out to me as something that I would listen to on my own time.