Dawnwalker – The Between

Dark Juan
5 days ago
5 min read

Updated: 4 days ago

Released by: Room312

Release Date: 24.10.25

Running Time: 52:24

Score: 8/10

Good afternoon. I have been looking at a larger house in a town at the upper end of the Calder Valley in a town whose name literally means Death and Murder. That town is Todmorden. It is a very large house that will actually allow me to have office space within it and will probably mean that you get to read more drivel from me. You fantastically lucky things!

In other news, the weather is grim, a razor wind is blowing through the environs of Sowerby Bridge and Mrs Dark Juan has elected to have an early bath after we stayed up late last night drinking and finding the most obscure music we both like to listen to and playing it to each other for critical analysis. Needless to say, I won this game with a double whammy of Cromagnon’s ‘Caledonia’ from the late 1960s, which is a proto-Industrial tune, and Cubanate’s ‘Vortech I’, from the erstwhile British band who were the first to meld some fucking hard Techno with Metal and were criminally ignored by everyone apart from me. She followed this up with an eight-minute epic Folk Drone tune from Lankum, and I killed the night off with the French language version of ‘She Left’ by C-Tec, being a collaboration between Front 242’s Jean-Luc De Meyer and Cubanate’s Marc Heal.

Victory was mine! Mrs Dark Juan defaulted back into Aurora and shamefully doesn’t like Twin Temple.

None of this has anything to do with the band I have placed on to the almighty Platter of Splatter ™, and this one is a doozie if you want something challenging to listen to, being as Daywalker’s “The Between” is possibly the ultimate definition of an epic song, being as it is a mere THIRTY-TWO minutes in length, and performed not so much by a band, than a collective of egregiously talented individuals that all make Dark Juan sick, because he can’t even play guitar properly, or write words, despite his repeated efforts on the websites he writes for. I am very good at reports though. Just not music reviews!

This, however, does not concern me. Two websites are daft enough to publish my works and there’s more than ten thousand of you out there who are even dafter and read them! Thank you all. One day I’ll be a real music journalist.

Anyway, this record is a challenging listen, as I previously said. It encompasses every thing from the gnarliest, angriest Metal and every vocal style from sepulchral growling from a bloke who really needs his throat looking at by a specialist, to gut wrenching screaming, from possibly the same bloke who REALLY needs to visit a doctor as the sounds he produces are barely human, to the most beautiful of female vocals, to cut-glass English spoken word, to soaring harmonies encompassing boys and girls opening their throats in homage to… Something. The music is a journey in itself, a cinematic experience that brings together Drone passages, Alt-Metal, Black Metal vocals, Industrial, Trad Metal and everything in between, from the gentlest of jangling guitar and soft passages, to some parts that are hell-bent on ripping your arm off and beating you to death with the wet end.

There really is something for everyone in this epic and lengthy song, mournful piano and squawky sex horn underpin beautiful female vocals, synth work warps and wefts its way through gossamer-soft movements, before they give way to the sonic rage of warp-speed guitar and percussion, then changes form into poetry recited over chiming bells. There are passages that could pass for Ambient music where softness and gentleness are the key factors, counterpointed with violent snarling and screaming.

“I’d always wanted to write a song that could function as a whole album,” says band leader Mark Norgate. “It took many attempts because I wanted it to be truly through-composed — starting at the beginning and writing it through to the end. This approach also matches the album conceptually, by giving each phase the time it needs to evolve naturally into the next.” A narrator implores us to “listen without distraction,” and by doing so we may be carried away as each movement unfolds at its own undulating pace. Described by the band as “a guided meditation through death and dying”, it takes liberal doses of ancient Eastern philosophies on life and death and pairs them with a modern existential despair. It is intended to be cathartic, and even joyful, but will traverse the darker reaches of the psyche in order to get there.

Quite.

‘Remember Death’ is a bonus track, a mere twenty minutes in length, is available through Bandcamp and Ampwall exclusively, and this song is a mainly improvised piece, that begins by a narrator expounding about new year and how it is conceptualised as a newborn child, before the words concern themselves with Gnosticism, and other topics. It is a gentle and introspective piece. It might not be to everyone’s taste, however, being an Ambient-based piece that has soft lines intertwining under spoken-word vocals, that builds at a pace that is analogous to glacial shift. It is deep and unhurried.

You know how much Dark Juan loves The Chronicles of Manimal and Samara? Daywalker operate in the same cerebral continuum, intelligence dripping from every moment of the music, and sharing the same desire to completely disregard cultural norms and musical genre. That, my friends, is what Dark Juan finds tremendously exciting about bands like TCOMAS and Daywalker. They challenge me, they force me to be better and increase my intelligence by bringing me knowledge in musical form. Don’t get me wrong, I love boneheaded stuff, and music that has no message beyond trying to be as heavy or savage as possible, but there are times when I want my tastes and psyche challenged and my ideas and morality fucked about with. This is what Daywalker have done on this release.

The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System is astounded at the almost competence having been displayed in the above words. However, it is time to score “The Between”. It is difficult because they transcend genre norms and soar above them, but they are sufficiently challenging that their music Is not likely to find much of an audience – they aren’t party music for drinking and roaring “FUCKING SLAAAAAAYER” at passers-by. But they are something more fundamental to the human condition and their power comes from their intelligence and lack of musical borders. Hence they receive a score of 8/10, which represents the ultra-high quality of the music and content, with marks deducted for the fact that “The Between” is an extremely long piece of music that simply is not going to be understood by everyone.

TRACKLISTING:

The Between

Remember Death (Bonus Track)

LINE-UP:

Music and lyrics written by Mark Norgate

Chris J. Allan - Drums

Matteo Bianciotto - Guitars

Alexander Brown - Guest solos

Dane Cross - Vocals

Jack D’Arcy - Synths, Sound Design

Luke Fabian - Bass

Dyana F. - Bells, Percussion