Awake The DreamerDamaged Souls

Damaged Souls is the highly anticipated debut album from Swedish melodic post-hardcore band Awake The Dreamer.

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Although this is the first major mark on their discography, Awake The Dreamer have been chalking up serious touring miles since forming in 2015, and have released a number of singles that have shot them into the limelight. Damaged Souls delivers on the promise built up by the groundswell hype around Awake The Dreamer. Fans of post-hardcore and melodic metalcore can anticipate a wild ride through Damaged Souls.

After it’s opening title-track prelude, Damaged Souls kicks into action with one of it’s heavier tracks, Atmosphere, which features Ryo Kinoshita of Crystal Lake, and hints at the heavy-metalcore sound courted around the edges by the Awake The Dreamer.

Damaged Souls is a solid debut. While not strikingly innovative, it does what it does well. Extremely well, even.

The mellow end of post-hardcore returns with Far Away, before Awake The Dreamer level deranged intensity with Blood Red Fists. Jarring, panic-sticken leads, frenetic pace and disturbing vocal rhythms make this track persistently unnerving and infectious. The midsection of Damaged Souls has a correspondingly otherworldly and unsettling emotional core, with Lunar and Your Mind invoking soundscape-style emotional spaces with interesting, advanced arrangements and transcendant melodic sequences. The closing track Negative Filters features a strong vocal performances from Max Andrén and Benjamin Turesson, from severe despair to rich-toned, clean melody lines, seemingly rolled up in one internally conflicted, yet cosmically beautiful entity.

Damaged Souls is a solid debut. While not strikingly innovative, it does what it does well. Extremely well, even. It pulversises in its heavy parts, and reaches right into the heart with its melodic elements. Awake The Dreamer have securely harnessed the duality of post-hardcore: chaotic and aggressive, yet also introspective. Well worth checking out, and a serious opening statement from a band that has the goods to become a mainstay in the post-hardcore and metalcore scene.

STANDOUT TRACKS: Blood Red Fists, Lunar, Negative Filters
STICK THIS NEXT TO: Saosin, Crystal Lake, Ghost Atlas