Year: 2026
Label: In Illo Tempore/Gladivs Records
This is an album I’ve been sitting on for quite a while. Despite its seeming simplicity, Dawn Of The Fall is one of those albums it’s been pretty hard to put thoughts to paper about. One reason is that, as we shall shortly see, I have some pretty serious points of criticism about the album. At the same time, I absolutely don’t want to pan the album entirely because, in the end, it also has good things going for it.
So, with these words of introduction, and without further ado, let’s dig into the debut album of EÔS who, I believe, hail from Turkey.
Dawn Of The Fall offers 38 minutes and eight tracks worth of mostly instrumental neofolk focused around acoustic guitar. Synths and electric guitar are used in careful moderation. Especially the instrumental tracks have a very ambient air about them. Not in their musical form per se, as acoustic guitar is anything but an ambient instrument, but in their melodic minimalism and subtlety of structure. The guitars weave pleasantly unintruding passages of simple melodies and repeating structures, which are a perfect fit for background music. On the flipside, if you focus on the album, it often risks becoming a bit tedious, as there isn’t enough going on to keep one captivated.
Once the vocals kick in, however, things take a slight downward turn. Rather than singing, they are mainly softly recited upon the music. As such, they don’t provide much in term of hooks for the listener to focus upon; in other words, they don’t help mitigate the flaw mentioned above. In addition, the vocal delivery comes across as lacking confidence. The vocals sound trepidative and rather flat, especially on the title track, where sole member Uygar tries his hand at more conventional singing. EÔS’ music would require tender subtlety in the vocals to accentuate the tender, beautiful atmospheres, but sadly, the vocals on the album don’t deliver on that. I don’t mind so much that Uygar’s vocals sometimes don’t hit the right notes – who expects perfect vocals on a neofolk album?
These are the two flaws that impair Dawn Of The Fall: the lack of captivating, engaging melodies and hooks in the music, and the somewhat lacklustre vocals. Yes, they are pretty serious shortcomings. At the worst of times, they make one think Dawn Of The Fall should rather be a demo than a debut album.
But there’s a strong beauty in the music. A tranquil, beautiful serenity pervades the entire album, sounding like a summer’s day (despite the album referencing autumn) in deep, untouched forests, sunshine filtered through green leaves and no sound of neither man nor machine to be heard. This is the kind of music that goes well with a book like Henry Thoreau’s Walden or, maybe, a good fantasy book that’s not too heavy on combat and war. I can also see how most of the instrumental tracks would work a treat as music to accompany an RPG session!
So, whilst I really can’t honestly laud Dawn Of The Fall too highly, I think there’s potential here, seeds from which far, far superior works can grow from in the future. Whilst the beautiful atmospherics and the ambient-like nature of the album sometimes results in it being too unengaging, a lot of the time it also works. Perhaps what EÔS’ music would need are a bit more pronounced melodies in the center of the songs. And time spent working on the vocals – they are at the moment EÔS’ weakest link.
In other words: don’t lose heart. Don’t give up. There’s work to put in, but from time to time Dawn Of The Fall flashes enough potential to convince me it’ll be worth to put this work in.
