Throes Of Dawn is one of those underground metal bands that you become very excited about discovering – and then you realize that a band this good will not remain unknown for long. With lyrics filled with emotions and longing and music that is expansive in scope, Throes Of Dawn’s latest recording Binding Of The Spirit will impress many.
We recently conducted an e-mail interview to find out more about this brilliant group of musicians. Prepare for the journey…
Highwire Daze: Introduce yourself and tell me what you do in Throes Of Dawn.
Henri: I am Henri Kaamos, the lyric writer, the vocalist and one of the founding members of Throes Of Dawn.
HD: Where is the band from and what is the music scene like there?
Henri: Throes Of Dawn comes from the West coast of Finland from a town called Vaasa. We have lots of great metal bands coming from there, like: Enochian Crescent, ...and Oceans, Rotten Sound and Black Dawn to name a few. And generally we have a great and growing metal scene in Finland nowadays.
HD: Describe the music of Throes Of Dawn to someone who has never heard it before.
Henri: The music is mid-paced, dark, melodic and very atmospheric metal.
HD: What are you referring to by the title "Binding Of The Spirit?"
Henri: It comes from our third track Binding of the Spirit onto Earth. And it’s quite hard to explain everything about those lyrics, but it’s about a sad spirit and of a great loss, it’s kind of a dark dream with touches of fantasy. For more detailed information about our lyrics, we will soon open a directory to our homepage with some background and explanations to our lyrics.
HD: What is a "Rainbow Warrior?"
Henri: The Rainbow Warrior is an ancient belief (I think it was the indians) who believed that just before the end of the world, the 12 rainbow warriors would rise from a "long sleep" and prevent the destruction of the planet... But on our lyrics, they will never come as referred to on the song title: "The Last Rainbow Warrior is Dead".
HD: What are some of the other tracks on your new CD about?
Henri: It’s hard to put all those things into few words, since they differ quite much from each other. But something that could bind every song together would be Despair, which is more or less present in every song. Our lyrics are a mix of my feelings/views and dark dreams/fantasies.
HD: What do you think sets Throes Of Dawn apart from other Black Metal bands?
Henri: Well, one thing separates us quite good, as we don’t play Black metal at all. We don’t mix satanism into our music, at least not so visibly. We’re playing Dark metal, we don’t want to spread any certain belief or philosophy with our music. Musically we differ from other bm/dark metal bands quite much as we don’t use any straight forward riffing or any "brutal" elements, except in the vocals of course. We create certain dark atmospheres with our music, and that can’t be done with faster/more aggressive music.
HD: What is a live Throes Of Dawn show like for those of us who have yet to see you perform?
Henri: It’s been a while since we played live... almost a year ago! We will not play live anymore, until we get a good synth player to our gigs, as on our albums our guitarist plays the synths and he can’t play both instruments at the same time! We will do some live shows though, when we are ready for it. It´s hard to create similar atmosphere in live situations, if the gig is not well organized (if there is no person to take care of the sounds and the lighting..)
HD: Any chance of Throes Of Dawn playing here in the States?
Henri: No, I don’t think that will happen, not in the near future. But, it would be great to play there. Hopefully we will play there sometime in the future.
HD: What kind of lasting impression would you like your music to have on a listener?
Henri: Well, I’m satisfied if our music creates some sort of emotions on the listener... but lasting impression? Hmm.. that would be the impression that our music is honest and comes straight from the heart of it’s creators.. We are serious with our music, we don’t do this thing for money.
HD: What are the future plans for Throes Of Dawn?
Henri: We have already started to compose new songs for our fourth full-length album, so I guess we’re fully concentrating on that next. But we’re also going to print Throes Of Dawn shirts, and desperately seeking for a talented synth player so we could start to play those live shows.
HD: Any messages for Metal fans here in the States?
Henri: Listen to our Binding Of The Spirit album and visit our homepage at: http://www.throesofdawn.cjb.net!
|