FRACTAL GATES – One With Dawn

RELEASE YEAR: 2024

BAND URL: https://fractalgates.bandcamp.com/

The French progressive melodic death metal ensemble is a debutante on our website, at least as far as reviews are concerned, even though they have been at their craft for 18 years but only 3 full lengths: Altered State of Consciousness²⁰⁰⁹, Beyond The Self²⁰¹³ and The Light That Shines²⁰¹⁸, before the independently released subject of this review, One With Dawn²⁰²⁴, released on the unusual (not a Friday) day of April 20th, a very good record for those who enjoy works of Insomnium (a lot), Amon Amarth (much), Katatonia (a little less), Omnium Gatherum (a little less) or Be’lakor (a fair amount).

Most of the songwriting Sébastien Pierre (vocals, keyboards), Arnaud Hoarau (guitars), Stéphane Peudupin (guitars), Antoine Verdier (bass), and Jeremy Briquet (2012-drums) present here recalls Insomnium’s debut album In The Halls Of Awaiting²⁰⁰² – great, catchy melodic choruses surrounded by simple but also catchy riffs, songs which drop on you, make you happy at the time of your listening enough to give them 5/6 and then you promptly forget them. There is a consistent feeling that, generally, Fractal Gates want to chase Insomnium (“When The Distance Paints Us” is Above The Weeping World²⁰⁰⁶ par excellence) and the warm, bassy, clear and not very brutal production increases that feeling, but also significantly contributes to the catchiness, elegance and certain “prettiness” of the material. In fact, were it not for growls that sound a lot like Niilo Sevänen (Insomnium) you could be fooled you’re listening to just a progressive heavy metal album, especially when you hear the very alternative/hardcorish cleans and guitars (Earthbound), which isn’t necessarily a bad thing unless you only tolerate your melodic death metal as deathly as melodic, then, I suspect, you might stop reading here and move on with your life.

If you do, you will miss the other side of the coin – the progression, which makes things a lot more interesting on the favorite “Into The Unknown” which very much recalls Dark Tranquillity’s “Atoma” main melody, verses Therapy? introduces (track 4) cleans akin to Tom Englund (courtesy of guest vocalist Deibys Artigas from Project Arcadia) along with accordingly Evergrey-ish chorus, as simple riffs bring the first decade of 2000s In Flames to mind, as well as latter Sentenced. Or consider “Severance” where the excellent, admittedly powerful, rolling riffs recall recent In Flames but then quickly Be’lakor and early In Flames, Omnium Gatherum and In Mourning, with a very deathly part, all never too far for too long from a melody, which is kind of a signature for Fractal Gates. And I was totally taken aback by guest crooner’s Egan O’Rourke’s (Daylight Dies) perfect imitation of Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeld’s cleans (Echoing Motions), on purpose or in tribute, and then there are luscious melodies reminiscent of classic Opeth and In Mourning that sweeten the deal even more. And, speaking of imitation, is it a coincidence Paradise Lost has a song “Serenity” (Obsidian²⁰²⁰) and on their “Serenity” Fractal Gates sounds like Paradise Lost?

The album is bookended and sequestered in the middle by three short keyboard spacey instrumentals akin to those of Sadist which, to some, may seem superfluous or break the momentum while, to others, may seem like natural and necessary additions and, while I am usually in the former camp, in this particular case, I think they serve the purpose on a 14 (!) track album (16 if you count bonuses). The inclusion of two tracks from the debut, remade, led me to conclude two different things. Whereas “The Eclipse” is warmer and fuller thanks to the production, I actually prefer that cold raw climate of the original, however on “Skies Of Orion”, the warm clear production suits the song better than on the original because of all those details, (especially that slow down sounds “garagey” on the original.) In any case, I question their inclusion as they artificially bloat the album running time to close to an hour. As for the original 2024 material, there are three songs which are just good, or, rather, two that are good – “Seamless Days” (love that gentle melody in the chorus) and the somewhat Swallow The Sunny title track – and one that is ok, “Hyperstate”, which tends to abuse the melodeath formula a bit too much, and that, despite the fact that I like this album very much, weighed in on my decision to settle for 5 rather than 5.5.

One With Dawn²⁰²⁴ is a very good album and Fractal Gates are very good musicians but they are inconsistent songwriters. There’s progression and experimentation but it feels like they weren’t quite ready to leave their comfort zone and just run with it, like, say, Dark Tranquillity on the excellent Construct²⁰¹³. I think, even though we are very late in the game and on the 4th full length, there’s great potential if they detach from that formulaic songwriting and increase the tendency to experiment. I realize that it’s a scary decision in melodeath where fans can get very “tru” in a split second, but there are plenty of open-minded and patient metal afficionados such myself, so I think, for future endeavors, Fractal Gates should just throw caution to the wind, if only to match the free-spirit message of their lyrics.