Catchy Asskicking Metal

Finske Tracedawn var for meg et nytt bekjentskap, og da var det selvsagt på sin plass med en liten prat med gitarist Roni. Bandet følger en passe velkjent formel, men har allikevel det lille ekstra som skal til for å skille seg ut i mengden av lignende band. Nedenfor kan du lese hva Roni hadde å berette om det nye albumet og bandet. 

Tracedawn is a new acquaintance to me, can you tell me and all of our readers who don’t know you a little bit about the band and previous albums. Roni: We're a bunch of young dudes from Helsinki, and we play catchy modern metal. Some might even call it melodic death metal. We've done three albums so far, toured around Europe twice and done a few bigger festival gigs outside Finland.

And the new album, Lizard Dusk, how would describe it in one sentence or 100 words (you can choose)? Roni: Lizard dusk is a catchy, ass-kicking motherfucker of an album featuring a mix of huge choruses, aggresive riffs and all kinds of groovy and freaky stuff you wouldn't expect.

My first thought listening to Lizard Dusk is catchy melodic death metal in the footsteps of In Flames and Soilwork, perhaps a bit more commercial (not in a bad way, but please feel free to disagree), have these bands been an inspiration, or am I way off...? :)(and if not, who would you say has been the bands you have been inspired by)Roni: I guess those bands have been somewhat influential, but we're not really trying to follow in the footsteps of certain bands. We just play stuff that comes out naturally. But of course there are a lot of bands that have inspired us and some of them don't really have anything to do with the style of music we play.

I don't have the album itself, only a download link, actually I don't have much info at all...., anyone famous on the producer side, any guest musician appearing, anything you are especially proud of..?  Roni: I think what's special about this album (compared to the others) is that it was 100% recorded and produced by us. Basically our guitarist/vocalist Tuomas was in charge all the time. And I think we're all extremely pleased with the results.

Bands tend to have favorite songs on each album, which track/tracks stands out for you on Lizard Dusk, and why? Roni: My personal favorites are the opener "Arabian Nights" and the fourth song "The Crawl". "Arabian Nights" was a cool choice for the first song because it starts with a bang and you can't really tell what's going to happen. And it's a cathcy tune with a nice groovy mid-part. "The Crawl" is a great epic song, much like "The Forsaken" on our previous album. It's got a nice "floating" mood and you can just lay back and dig it.

Any feedback so far, from press and fans? and how much do you care about good or bad reviews, is it just "whatever", or do you take it seriously? Roni: A lot of people have seemed to like the album, but of course you can't please everyone. Musically this is just what we want to do at the moment and it's great to hear that some people really dig it. I don't think we really care about the reviews, although having a good review is just good promotion. But of course it was amazing to receive good reviews from bigger mags like Metal Hammer.

Alltough I already have a download version of the album, and its on Spotify, I will defiantly buy the album, yes dear readers, Im telling you, its CATCHY! Im a sucker for limited editions and vinyl, will the album be available in any of these formats. And speaking of downloading and Spotify, whats your view on this, lets all go ahead and download illegal all you want or use Spotify or... Come on, Buy the album...? Roni: The album is also available as a vinyl version and it comes with a free CD. How cool is that? I think it's good to be able to check out new music on Youtube and Spotify. And if you really enjoy the songs, why not buy the whole album?

Plans for touring to promote the album, if so, where, and what about good old Norway? Ever been here before, at all? And if not... Why Not?? Roni: We're hoping to be able to tour around Europe later this year and it would be cool to do a gig or two in Norway. We've been there once before, in Oslo supporting Stratovarius a couple of years ago. And that was fucking cool!

Future plans for the band, rule the world or just a hobby? Do you all work besides the music, or are you able to live as full time death metal stars? Roni: Right now we're doing gigs in order to promote our new album. But of course we'll keep on writing new music and at some point we're going to start planning our next release. Some of the guys have day-jobs and some of us study, but hopefully one day we'll all be able to just play or stuff and rock the world.

Tracedawn Hjemmeside