Morning

Morning

Morning is an atmospheric progressive rock band from The Netherlands. Morning was founded in the summer of 2000 by vocalist Saskia van Heugten and drummer Mauro Pi. In autumn 2000 the brothers Pol Bannier, bass guitarist, and Stijn Bannier, synths, joined the band. After working for two years with just one guitarist and releasing two demos in 2001 the 2002, the Dutch band decided in summer 2002 to continue with two guitarists. The remaining members found Martijn Brauwers and Bas Rensen.  The band calls its style dreammetal, with influences from bands like The Gathering and Ayreon, but also Soilwork and Killswitch Engage. With Bas and Martijn the band is more  powerful and intense like never before. In August 2003 the band released new demo-EP called Inside. Inside got raving reviews from the international press! A debut album was recorded by the band in the summer of 2004. This is Hour of Joy and was released worldwide in September 2005 by Black Lotus Records. The album was recorded in the PITStudio in Weert and mastered in the Athens Mastering Studio. In some intro’s you can hear a choir, which was recorded in Leuven – Belgium, and a guest appearance from Arjen “Ayreon” Lucassen. In the current line-up Morning creates a decent name in live performing. Since Winter 2002 they have participated in countless performances in and outside of The Netherlands, which is remarkable for an unsigned band. Thus the band stood no less than 80 times on stage in 2003 and 2004. Morning played at festivals such as Summer Darkness, Metal Female Voices Fest, Novemberrain, OccultFest, GothTronic, Gentse Feesten, Molfest and Bevrijdingsfestival. The band could not only reach the metalheads when playing with among others After Forever, Autumn, Epica, Orphanage, Lana Lane, Paradise Lost, Therion and Trail of Tears, but also the pop/rock public was reached when performing with among others Blöf, BrainPower and Di-Rect. The band is playing again on a weekly basis with the debut album in their pocket. Among others ’t Paard van Troje, Effenaar, Melkweg, Tivoli, Goudvishal and Manifesto are some of the venues in which the band will perform while promoting Hour of Joy.

Discography (That I Own)

1. Hour of Joy 2005: The debut album by Morning. As far as debut albums go, this one is pretty good. It must be taken with a grain of salt that this is a beginning band and so great things cannot be expected of them immediately. Their sound alternates between alternative rock with slightly metal guitar riffs to pop rock. Generally I would have found this obnoxious, but somehow it manages to work for this group with this particular album. Lead singer, Saskia has strong and commanding vocals that force one to pay attention to her lyrics.

In Conclusion
Though this is not a fantastic band, I do think that they have a great deal of potential and I do hope that they produce better work than Hour of Joy in their future endeavors.