What's up, Metal maniacs? I'm here once again to give you an insight on this... (brace yourself) Progressive, Rock, Dub and Electronic quintet known as: LITHIUM DAWN; hailing from Los Angelis, California. Signed independently.

The obvious reason I said, "brace yourself", is that Dub is a selected genre in this venture; I don't know about you, but I personally feel "Dub Metal" doesn't have a place in Metal as it really doesn't suit. Metal is Metal; Heavy, Thrash, Death, Progressive, Nu, so on and so forth...sure you can add a multitude of genres to your advantage, but Metal for me is power, skill and technique. Hell, if this band has that...I'll most definitely surprise myself.
And holy crap; this band does have, all of the above, and more. I sense a MESHUGGAH based-instrumental killer that just defines the word: epic. This is what Progressive music is about for me; I personally don't enjoy a mess about that will make rhythm perfectionists face-palm in agony, this is LITHIUM DAWN's second outing: "Tearing Back the Vile I: Ascension" is a musical masterpiece that will shock new fans and old.

Musical majesty and an experience that will leave you in awe once finished. "Tearing Back the Vile I: Ascension" is an hour long masterpiece that exposes some fancy exploits; the entire super group compose of individual jobs: Ondrej Tvarozek performs some excellent vocals that stick with you throughout the album; they keep that atmospheric vibe with you that keeps the atmospheric intent very high and strong with an amazing array of ranges in his voice, also synthesizing guitar, and programming. Similarly found with Matt Benoit, but has a heftier entitlement... Drums, Percussion, Guitars, more synthesis and programming. Jens Marcelis performs the bass and guitars and Aaron Gage on the orchestral and backing vocals requirement. Safe to say, after listening to the entire album, we have ourselves here an amazingly progressive powerhouse who blends in a fantastic mix of musical integrity.

And so the music... what we have here is a full-length conceptual album that embodies a mix of space atmospheric moods, while adding nice elements of progressive and technical grooves. The opener and title track: "Tearing Back the Vile" and "Ascension" set this vibe throughout the album, it's a good thing the sound production is top-notch brilliance, but also has very interesting melodies; nothing too extreme in the vocals, but the MESHUGGAH influence in the instruments make this a brilliant fusion and just all round, sounds really good. "Point of No Return" (feat. Sithu Aye) and "Decimator" (feat. Plini) showcase more of the above but add nice duets making more of an impressive display of musical integrity; if all progressive music sounded like LITHIUM DAWN, I would slowly begin to appreciate progressive rock a while lot more; simple as that.

Other heavy-hitters like "Self Collapse", "Synchronicity", "Tidal" and "Spirals", are equally just as fascinating and an utmost enjoyable listen. If you were to head out to some fields or woods, you would likely feel the atmospheric charms of this album, tenfold. So I guess that's that, the rest of the album sounds pretty much equal to each other in their own righteous form, for Prog and Tech, I was very surprised to finally agree with a multilingual genre of this stature, and actually enjoy myself as well.

So, if you're new to LITHIUM DAWN like I was...I can confidently say that even if you aren't a Prog or Tech purist like myself, definitely give this masterful record ago, it just goes to show that you shouldn't judge a genre by its lettering, until you actually give it a go for yourself. So what are you waiting for? Stop reading and go blast this album out and enjoy some top-quality music by these top-quality band members.<