Garth Arum
The Dawn of a New Creation

Garth Arum is the name of a one man project, the brainchild of a guy who calls himself Nightmarer. That sounds a bit scary. The guy started writing music for this project back in the 1990s, and it is now those writings has come to life in the debut album The Dawn of a New Creation. Sure there was a demo made some time ago but this is the real album that has a dreamy looking cover artwork that makes it quite hard to draw conclusions about what to expect when the album gets a spin in the record player. The inspirations is unsurprisingly, judging by the cover art, dreams, fairytales, journeys through the human psyche and such things. That all sounds exciting, the problem is that it is a one man project and those are quite often terrible pieces of indifference or garbage. Still, no band or project are judged beforehand so what about this?

It is avant-garde black metal, dreamy, deep and with lots of dynamics between the heavy and the soft dreamy stuff. It is quite varied as well but all the time with a surreal sense of dreams and fairytales looming over it. It is a dream painted on a canvas made out of fairy dust. Really well produced album this one with a soundscape that invites the mind to wander through the different moods and ideas in the brain, of course if you are someone without imagination it might be less exciting. I think the album is a high quality production on most parts, but maybe he is trying a bit too hard at times as there are some parts that sounds a bit forced and the album is also a tad on the long side with the eleven tracks almost reaching the hour.

I would say that this album has its flaws but nevertheless it is a strong album with an excellent production for a debut. I would say that it is overall a very interesting and fascinating musical journey, the dreamscapes are often enough to convince me to overlook the smaller niggles I have. It plays on what I like and it is a thing that makes you think and above all it is not a typical dull, stereotypical album that most albums in the metal genre actually are. I like this no matter the flaws.

Best about the album is the opening and the ending which are quite impressive and really likeable. I should also add that the middle of the album isn’t that bad but maybe not as good as the parts I see as the best. Nevertheless, I said I really enjoy this album and I do, I can however see that some may have problem with it being an album demanding something from you as a listener so if you are more into playlist of rubbish metal songs from Iron Maiden and their peers then this isn’t your cup of tea.

So, for all of you with an avant-garde view of life, this is really something you should have a look at. There are flaws as I was touching on before but it is said that Nightmarer has material for four albums so this flaws might well be rectified in upcoming releases which are said to be expected in coming years. I look forward to that, but in the meantime there is this great album to be entertained by.

HHHHHHH