### Dauntless: Death row poet

#### 13/07/09 || Trauma

Dauntless is a death/thrash outfit from Helsinki, and a fine one at that. It boasts a good sounding production and excellent musicianship. The vocals weren’t my cup of tea at first, but they’ve been growing on me. Seeing as there’s a trillion bands splattered about the metal scene, I’m not at all surprised that I’ve never heard of these guys, but it’s nice to know I do now. I wasn’t expecting too much from them, really. But I prefer going into new things with a pessimistic outlook, because if it’s good I’m that much happier in the end.

“My declaration” kicks this album off pretty well. I’m really digging the lead work here. The opening riff is pretty rocking. “Waking up the world” continues what the first track started adding more riffs and more varied vocals…the high screams have to go, though. The lead work still stands out to me, and something I’ll probably keep mentioning. “Where the end justifies the means” is good, but I’m at a loss of things to say about the song. “Death-trap” is a better song and I enjoyed it with even more headbanging riffs. “Vapautus” is an instrumental with some spoken word towards the end, alternating between clean-guitars and distorted guitars throughout. Not a stand-out track but nothing bad, it sounds quite good.

“Pois alta!” is an alright song, has a great groove right at the halfway mark, but overall is not stand-out besides the aforementioned middle part. “Let them destroy” is the only song I dislike. There is this extended scream at the halfway mark, sounding almost like a pig squeal, that really kills it for me which is unfortunately because the song itself isn’t bad. “Overcrowded” picks the album back up, and has some more lead work I really like. “Still think it’s worth it?” has I think the longest solo on the whole album at the end. It’s both good and bad, bad because I’m not a fan of whammy bar, and good because he does a couple cool runs. “My guidance” ends the album pretty good. It’s one of my favorite songs on this album. There’s another one of those screams again, but not as grating as the others. So the album is made up of more good than bad songs, including a few great ones.

Dauntless never really cease to hook me back into their assault even if I might start to stray for whatever reason, like the screams. I do notice that the vocalist’s highs are pretty strained and he does them often, so he should either work on that or try to avoid doing them. His lows sound very good, though. The guitars and drums sound great and I love the solos/leads like I’ve mentioned plenty of times already. I have nothing to complain about the sound, though I’m sure there’s people out there who will find things to nitpick.

I can’t fault this album for much more than not going above and beyond the call of death/thrash duty and having some questionable vocals at times, but that’s a personal taste. Expertly executed, great hooks, aggression, pretty much the whole package: they do blasts, breakdowns, etc. Nearly a week of listening (not ever day mind you) and I still like the music, minus the vocals, like before. Good stuff, keep it up. I’d like to check out these guys’ back catalog a bit more.

8 dildo screams out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Full Metal Music
- Website: www.dauntlessdeath.com
- Band
- Ari Nieminen: vocals
- Sami Helle: guitar
- Riku Katainen: lead guitar
- Olli Määttä: bass
- Arto Vesander: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. My declaration
- 02. Waking up the world
- 03. Where the end justifies the means
- 04. Death-trap
- 05. Vapautus
- 06. Pois alta!
- 07. Let them destroy
- 08. Overcrowded
- 09. Still think it’s worth it?
- 10. My guidance