Review: Dawnbreaker – Pactum Sanguine Novo
Review: Dawnbreaker – Pactum Sanguine Novo
A black metal album based largely on eucharistic theology? Count me in.
Dawnbreaker, solo project of multi-instrumentalist Cullen Toner (who goes by the pseudonym Tomrair here), is a name that any extreme metal fan should know. Since 2018’s war metal classic Deus Vult, the project shifted steadily into a more symphonic blackened death metal sound with subsequent albums. Now, with Pactum Sanguine Novo, Dawnbreaker has shifted again, and in my opinion, in a really good way.
Fans of Dawnbreaker’s classic blackened assaults will find a smorgasbord of new material to gorge upon here and all the hallmarks of Toner’s approach are present – hammering blasts, epic guitar riffs, and war metal’s signature driving approach are all in abundance on this one. But what I love about Pactum Sanguine Novo is its increased emphasis on a black metal style more commonly heard from bands like Watain and Skald in Veum. The guitar tone is spindly and thin, yet driven on like a horde of frantic banshees by the steady rolls of blastbeat thunder. Toner’s vocal is less roared and more croaked and ominous, yet still holds command over the sonic violence tearing out of your speakers. In some ways, this is a return to a degree to Dawnbreaker’s war metal roots on Deus Vult, but with a slightly more traditional black metal emphasis.
However, I enjoy the lyrical focus here just as much as the music. This is metal that doesn’t just quote Scripture, but explores it, digs into it, and examines it; and here, by and large, it explores those passages dealing with eucharistic theology. The album cover depicts a key concept of specifically Roman Catholic eucharistic theology, that of Eucharistic Adoration, with the consecrated Host (the unleavened bread used in Latin Catholic churches) displayed in a monstrance. For evangelicals and some Protestant readers, this all might seem very foreign, but this album provides tremendous food for thought.
On the first track, “Sanctity of Blood,” Toner asks:
“What does it mean to drink the blood of God?
For the breath of life is in the blood
How sacred this mystery!
Distant cultures performing sacrifice
Shared memory of separate nations
An attempt to cleanse the soul
Purify the evils of the flesh
But what if God became man?”
Toner continues to explore themes of animal sacrifice in the Old Testament within the texts of Leviticus, but where he especially confronts the listener is on the track “Adoration of Holy Host,” where he specifically touches, presumably from a Catholic perspective, on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (that the bread and wine actually become the Body and Blood of Christ). He asks:
“Is a symbolic view the milk of babes?
A necessary concession of an “enlightened” age?
Did the apostles mis-train their disciples?
Or has half the church been deceived?
If you are there shall I not bow before you?
If I chew your flesh should I not kneel before it?
Will you have compassion towards our need for carnal symbols?
Will you lead the faithful away from that which you hate?”
The section above leaves the listener hanging somewhat, and left me wondering myself if he was advocating the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist , or whether he was also grappling with it all and questioning it. Maybe both. But what’s for certain is that this is a metal album that makes the listener think a little more deeply about a great mystery and the Scriptures that speak about it. Whether you agree or not with the conclusions, this is an album that takes it all to a deeper level spiritually and theologically, and I for one definitely appreciate that.
Check it out HERE.
For Fans Of: Watain, Skald in Veum, Mayhem (classic era), Cataclysmic Warfare
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