Fractal Gates – One With Dawn
Release Date: 20th April 2024
Label: Self Released
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal.
FFO: Insomnium, Arch Enemy, Dark Tranquillity.
Review By: Ross Bowie
Fractal Gates return with their 4th album One With Dawn, while many of the bands peers and main influences hail from Scandinavia, the melo-death 5 piece hail from Paris. Their last effort The Light That Shines saw more attention come their way, and six years later the band have delivered.
The album has a streamlined feel and wastes no time in showing the audience its hand. Opening track Shinning Fall has a great guitar lead and a spoke word passage as things start to ramp up as the screamed vocals and pace comes roaring out. The lead guitar is the element that Fractal Gates lean on to escalate their songs to the next level, while following the Gothenburg death metal influence there is always an element of traditional metal in the lead lines making them all have an air of familiarity around them while also taking influence from both metalcore and classic rock.
Seamless Days delivers a true rock star moment, with Stéphane Peudupin having a total wind-swept hair on top of a mountain guitar solo, while in the same track taking the song on a slight black metal tangent with his riffs. They might not be the most expansive or mind-bending take on the melo-death style of riffing, but like I stated in the opening paragraph, this is a band who have taken a more straight to the point approach this time around.
Into The Unknown see’s the introduction of clean vocals via Deibys Artigas who lends his power metal infused voice to the band, it comes as a shock to the system after the opening run of songs but once settled the balance of the two is well executed and adds some variation to the bands sound. Artigas then returns for another guest appearance, this time for the album’s stand-out track, Earthbound. This is when the band dial into that metalcore influence and really let that stomp loose in the second verse. The balance between the two vocalists is a perfect blend, keeping both the intensity and melody at the forefront of the song.
The album then goes to have another featured vocalist, this time with Daylight Die’s Egan O’Rourke. He offers a completely different vocal approach and really ups the melody especially in the albums big swing moment “Echoing Motions” while the album is intercut with “Visions” which act as ambient interludes “Echoing Motions” see’s the band incorporate those elements into the track as well as showing their acoustic chops.
The guest appearances really level One With Dawn up, but then leaves the songs with just the core members feeling a little bare at times. While the songs are powering on, you can’t help but feel some of the clean vocals that have elevated tracks previously would do the same here. The guitar provides a lot of melody, but is at its best when playing off the different vocalists.
Fractal Gates have taken six years between albums but have delivered a solid slice of melodic death metal. The whole album has a sense of urgency that takes you along for the ride and ending with the band’s most ambitious song to date. There is solid riffing, excellent guest features and some real heaviness to boot. You can’t go wrong with that combination. 
(3.5 / 5)
