Stephen
Hailing from the blinding glitter of Las Vegas, Taking Dawn grows their tree from the 80s hard rock roots and shaped them with a modern heavy metal attitude to fits today's sound. Seeing the singer Chris Babbitt and guitarist Mikey Cross started their career as a Hard Rock security officer just reminds me of the working class heroes, Tesla, even though their style is quite different than them and leaned more to the rebellious side of Guns N' Roses or Skid Row. Babbitt has a heavy timbre similar to A7X's M.Shadows while Cross' shredding style is clearly a Slash disciple, and I must admit he's one of the potential wonderboy and if he'll be spending 8 hours a day practicing like Eddie Van Halen, Cross could be a legend one day.
Rumours said that the title track, "Time To Burn", that attracted the ears of Roadrunner executives and eventually signed them while I think honestly this one is a disposable song compared to the other superior picks such as "Take Me Away" that's reminiscent of Bon Jovi's "Runaway", "Save Me", or "Endlessly" which cranked up with huge chorus and anthemic chant. Those three songs are their greatest creation while other good tracks such as "Like A Revolution", "So Loud", or "Fight 'Em With Your Rock" is a bit patchy, sometimes they went off with great verse but falling dawn quickly with average chorus, and vice versa.
The band definitely needs to upgrade their songwriting skill but I believe with talents like these, that factor will gradually improved, and hopefully in the next album, they won't make some horrible songs like "Godless" or "The Chain". The sound production is very good and for those who can accept a mix of 80s glam metal with modern style of Avenged Sevenfold or Buckcherry, then "Time To Burn" is a good cake to taste.