ABERRATION Dreams at Dawn CD

The 2017 CD reissue of Dreams at Dawn by the Portuguese band Aberration, released through Firecum Records in collaboration with Nightfear Records, is a vital archival release that preserves a landmark moment in 1990s Portuguese melodic death metal. Originally released in 1996 as a limited independent demo tape, this professional CD edition was remastered to revitalize the sound of the Anadia based group. The tracklist was significantly expanded for this release, featuring the six original demo tracks alongside the 1997 song Cold Reflections and two rare live recordings from the 3rd Metal Festival in Moinhos de Carvide, providing a comprehensive retrospective of the band's peak years. Musically, the album represents the atmospheric and melancholic side of the death metal genre popular in the mid-90s, characterized by the interplay between aggressive riffing and somber acoustic interludes or keyboard layers. The lineup featured on these recordings—including vocalist Kurika, guitarists Mosh and Sousa, bassist Carabass, and drummer P.N. captured a specific sense of existential gloom and technical ambition that was prevalent in the Northern Portuguese scene. By making this material available on CD two decades after its initial tape release, Firecum Records allowed a new generation of listeners to experience a work that had long been a rare collector's item, cementing Aberration’s legacy as a pioneer of the melodic extreme style in Portugal.