Five Signs of Malice is the fifth full-length release by Portuguese doom metal pioneers DAWNRIDER, celebrating their 20th anniversary this year. Clocking in at just over 40 minutes, it consists of five songs and an outro that blend into one another seamlessly, creating an immersive listening experience. It's a bottom-end-heavy, guitar-heavy and '70s-style-keyboard-heavy album, driven by chunky riffs just as much as the organ which gives it a vintage flair, bordering on proto-doom with psychedelic undertones. While the band maintains mostly a shuffling doom tempo with ponderous jamming grooves, they occasionally break into pumping mid-tempo sections. Filipe Rele?go's deep, commanding vocals, also featured on their previous album, paint dark pictures of villainy, depravity, lechery, dread and decadence. The production is richly organic, thanks in large part to the exceptional mixing and mastering work by Tony Reed (Pentagram, Mos Generator, Saint Vitus, Electric Wizard...). DAWNRIDER's new offering will be a perfect addition to collections featuring albums by NOMAD SON, BLOOD FARMERS, DOOMRAISER, genre forefathers BLACK SABBATH, DEEP PURPLE, PENTAGRAM, BEDEMON, TROUBLE, SIR LORD BALTIMORE and BLUE CHEER, as well as doom disciples such as REVEREND BIZARRE, ORCHID or OGRE.
