Album Review: Dark To Dark

Dark To Dark, the debut album of Auckland’s Liminal Dawn was surreptitiously released onto the usual streaming platforms late November 2025. There was no fanfare or announcements, scarcely even a ripple on social media to mark its arrival. I was first made aware of its existence when the song Karmas Hand made the #1 spot on Wild Dogs Radio an online radio station who regularly champion Kiwi bands aided no doubt by the ever present Matt (Mockers) Mottram and his tireless crusade to promote Kiwi music around the world.

Feeling a bit late to the party, I threw on some running shoes, put on my earphones, queued up Dark To Dark and headed out the door for a long walk in the summer sun to get an appreciation for what this album is all about.

As debut albums go, Dark To Dark is an impressive 11 track collection of melodically driven songs with, unsurprisingly, dark themes. The whole album has a gothic, moody and ethereal feel with themes of alienation, isolation and frustration running through most of the tracks.

Kicking off with Karmas Hand, it provides a hard driving, energetic intro to the album that instantly makes you sit up and take notice. It has momentum and a memorable chorus that sets a strong early benchmark for what follows. It’s no wonder that this was picked as a favourite song on Wild Dogs Radio.

Surprisingly, Liminal Dawn have not taken the typical approach of releasing singles prior to dropping the entire album. A bold move, but it allows the audience to select which songs resonate with them and clearly the stand out track is Take Me Away with, as of the time of writing, over 1300 streams on Spotify. Take Me Away, the third track on the album, largely eschews the heavily compressed vocals and guitars that dominate much of the record, instead leaning into cleaner tones and spacious reverb, giving the track room to breathe and offering a welcome change in texture.

Other highlights include the hauntingly ethereal Amnesia, featuring Gilmour-esque slide guitar work. Hour Glass opens with intensely compressed vocals dialled up to eleven before dropping into a gloriously chunky groove reminiscent of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s Ohio but much, much harder. The instrumental Obsidian channels Metallica at their most melodic – think Fade to Black, One, or Nothing Else Matters – interwoven guitars, a touch of virtuosity that builds steadily. Elsewhere, Lonely Road recalls Porcupine Tree’s In Absentia era, offsetting its darker drive with vocal melody that echoes the late 90’s grunge à la Days of the New or Alice in Chains.

While definitely on the heavier end of the spectrum, Dark To Dark remains more in the realm of hard/alt rock than metal. Think ‘No More Tears’ era Ozzy or Alice in Chains with more than a touch of modern prog-rock such as Tool and Porcupine Tree’s ‘In Absentia’.

My few minor criticisms would be the some of the mixing choices and the length of the album. Production-wise, the album is pitched quite high with the guitars and the compressed vocals being front and centre. While the bass and drums are played proficiently, they feel somewhat anaemic at times. This lack of low-end foundation prevents some of the songs from having the “oomph” required to elevate them from solid to truly epic.

Dark To Dark has a total runtime of just over an hour – with all but two tracks exceeding the five-minute mark – and listening to the album in one sitting can begin to feel a bit demanding. By the mid stages, I found my attention starting to drift, maybe saving some of the songs for a follow-up album or EP would’ve helped maintain momentum.

That said, Dark To Dark remains a confident and accomplished debut, showcasing a band with an expansive sonic identity. Liminal Dawn are definitely a band to watch as they have the potential to deliver something genuinely formidable on future releases.