ENEMY ALLIANCE - Damnation Dawning

13 songs
31:09 minutes
***** ****
Black Star Foundation

Bandpage

My first impression when listening to Enemy Alliance’s album Damnation Dawning was of Swedish melodic hardcore punk from the Nineties, and I couldn’t have been any more right. The band consists of two musicians who used to play in bands like Satanic Surfers, No Fun At All and Venerea, all of them bands that defined said genre back in the final decade of the previous millennium.

Enemy Alliance began as a project back in 2005, released a split album with The Indecision Alarm two years later. If my math is right, they recorded their debut album Damnation Dawning yet another year later, and left it collecting dust for twelve more years before they decided to have it remastered and finally released.

Fans of melodic hardcore punk should still be delighted. Yes, the thirteen songs that just make it over half an hour sound like a blast from the past, but the songwriting and the instrumental and vocal performances are just sublime. The pace is mostly quite elevated, there is a sense of melancholy permeating the music, the vocals are raw and melodic at the same time, a little like emo punk in the Nineties before it was taken over and castrated by the goths.

There is not much more to say about Damnation Dawning. Most songs are fast, some are a little mellower, usually those making it over three minutes. Check out their songs about prison (No Justice, No Peace and Incarcerated) to hear their more emotional side. I don’t know if kids these days still listen to Nineties flavoured hardcore punk with melodic affinity and still a tough attitude, but it made me feel half my age again, and for that I am grateful.