Dawn of Winter

Dawn of Winter assembled in Ludwigsburg, Germany, during 1990. Throughout nearly all of the next decade the quartet remained largely unknown, circulating multiple demos before issuing the 1993 EP Celebrate the Agony. Vocalist Gerrit Philipp Mutz, guitarist Jörg Michael Knittel, bassist Joachim Schmalzried, and drummer Oliver C. Schramm used that recording to signal their devotion to melodic doom acts such as Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus, and Solstice.

The band’s first full-length, In the Valley of Tears, finally appeared in 1998 on guitarist Jörg Michael Knittel’s Iron Glory Records imprint, now with Dennis Schediwy on drums. Shortly afterward, Mutz and Knittel’s involvement with the power-metal groups Tragedy Divine and Sacred Steel placed Dawn of Winter on indefinite hold.

The members nevertheless continued occasional doom activity, releasing the 2001 EP Slow Is the Suffering and the 2003 demos compilation Doomcult Performance. Five years later they completed their second proper studio album, The Peaceful Dead, issued in Europe by Massacre Records and in the New World by Shadow Kingdom.