London rap quartet 404 Guild have finally released their debut album, False Dawn, nearly ten years after coming together in their hometown of Eastbourne. After working on a number of side projects, the group released their first two EPs, Guild One and Guild Two: Forever in 2019. However, shortly thereafter, founding member and lead singer Mina Topley-Bird tragically committed suicide following some longstanding mental health struggles. Whilst the songs on False Dawn are ostensibly not directly about the death of their bandmate and 404 Guild’s resulting grief, they are nonetheless permeated by a deep sense of melancholia and wistfulness.
The album’s downbeat atmosphere is established effectively right at the album’s outset by opening track “At Square One,” which opens with some brooding synths and the plaintive lyrics “Over there looks amazing / A call to arms, there’s a challenge that’s awaiting.” The impression is immediately given that this is not going to be an album that is happy with the way things are, but one underpinned by a profound sense of longing for the way they were or the way they could be.
404 Guild follow this up with the moody, intimate “Sodium Light,” which features lyrics about feeling “paranoid, skittish, in the end zone…being worried ‘bout my health since twenty,” relatable sentiments that convey feelings of urban discontent. The catchier, more melodic “Feedback Loop” features similarly relatable lyrics about having to “spend all day on the Overground getting there / They say the party’s over now.”
Whilst the first two tracks on False Dawn set a reasonably laid-back, if not downbeat, tone for the songs that are to follow, 404 Guild then upend the listener’s expectations with the thumping, bass-heavy instrumentation of “Chiron” and the aggressive rapping of “Dead Air.” Whilst this sort of musical bait-and-switch is generally effective in terms of keeping the album from becoming predictable, False Dawn does have a couple of slightly underwhelming moments. “New Health” opens by utilising strings in a very evocative way, but then undermines this good work by having party-ish beats set in halfway through, and the reggae-ish rhythm on “The Evening Star” feels somewhat insipid – but these are minor quibbles.
Overall, False Dawn is an attention-grabbing and (mostly) moving exercise in musical catharsis. Whilst Topley-Bird’s death is not overtly addressed, the grief her absence has clearly caused for 404 Guild is reflected in the introspective tone of virtually all the album’s songs.
