Album Notes

Powerful and true to life, The Dark After Dawn is a haunting journey into the mind of one man caught in a world of war, environmental destruction and financial ruin. The year is 2009.

The follow up to Joel Steven’s second release Fathomless, The Dark After Dawn was conceived and written in the troubled years of 2008 and 2009, a time when fear and uncertainty became the fabric of everyday life across our faltering world.

A conceptual collection of songs comparable in scope to great albums like Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” and Sting’s “Ten Summoner’s Tales", The Dark After Dawn pulls the listener through deepening tunnels of hope and despair, where each song adds a new element to the tale, yet can still stand amazingly strong alone.

True to his form, Joel Steven wrote and produced The Dark After Dawn to be rich in diversity. From the crushing and sinister “Time to Bleed”, to the soaring acoustic guitar driven “Listen”, and on to the tongue-in-cheek sarcasm of “Assisted Suicide”, Steven’s songs reflect the winding pathways of human emotion and the twisting moods of its narrator.

A lover of the English language from an early age, Joel took his talent for writing poetry and fiction into the realm of songwriting. His strong sense of imagery which he crafted as a poet and storyteller was infused with his love for melody, creating a sonic landscape where words and music reinforce one another, taking the listener on a
journey where each song has a setting all it’s own.