Another Day Dawns – 'Stranger' EP Review

Tracklist:

1. Stranger

2. Beautiful Suicide

3. Am I

4. Taste Of Heaven

5. Never Okay

6. Forget Me Not

In a way, my first thought when listening to this EP was that this is a nice throwback to a style of Rock I haven’t listened to since the early 2010s. This is in no way an insult – but this thickly produced, chunky, heavy-but-not-too-heavy Rock is the sort of thing that was prevalent at that time across the board, and it’s something that’s faded from the spotlight a little in the last few years. However, if Another Day Dawns are anything to go by, it’s a style that needs to come back and have another turn, as this was definitely a fun little listen.

With only five (proper) tracks, it’s an EP that definitely doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, and while it doesn’t feel like an evolution of Rock, it does what it does exceedingly well. I don’t normally do reviews where I go track-by-track, but given that this is just an EP, it feels like the best way to approach it.

So, here we go – track one, the title track “Stranger” is.... well it’s nothing really. It’s forty seconds of atmosphere building, which is quite nice, but could easily have been attached to the start of “Beautiful Suicide” rather than exisiting on its own. I fail to see quite why this was done, and I feel sorry if anyone buys digital tracks individually and accidentally buys it as the title track, for they may be disappointed.

Luckily, “Beautiful Suicide” (track two), makes up for this shortcoming. This is a foot stomping crowd pleaser – easily singable along with, this song chugs along appropriately. It also provides a lot of variety with each verse and chorus having various little embellishments appearing on each repeat, making no two verses exactly the same.

“Am I” is slower and clearly feels like it wants to be an anthem. But there’s something about it that doesn’t quite sit with me. In fact, of all the tracks, this is one of the weakest for me. It feels as if it’s written by numbers, and while it’s perfectly listenable to, it doesn’t do anything unexpected or provide any interest beyond that.

Track four, “Taste Of Heaven”, is musically better, with a nice jaunty riff making the whole song feel a little jazzy or funky, making it stand out very much from the previous tracks. The chorus lyrics are a little overwrought, but apart from that it’s a great little tune with a nice solo providing another musical layer to this track.

“Never Okay” starts, and I’m a little put off – it's an acoustic guitar and this appears to be a ballad. Rock ballads have to do something very special to not sound cheesy or out of place, and this song doesn’t really break the mould in any particular way. Half-way through it adds in the electric parts of the band in an attempt to give it some drive, but it is too little too late for this. My least favourite song on the EP here.

And then we reach the last track “Forget Me Not” - and there’s no way I’ll forget that riff, it’s beautiful. We've gone from my least favourite track on the EP to my favourite. Every part of this song slots together beautifully – the fun riff, the vocal performance, the production – everything is exactly as it should be for this track.

And that’s the EP done and dusted. It’s definitely something that’s worth a listen, and I hope to see more high quality tracks like 'Forget Me Not' and 'Taste Of Heaven' come from this talented band in the future. In short, the highs outnumber the lows and I’d definitely recommend giving this a try.