And, as the disc begins, there is little, if any, sign of a drop off. Tracks like Searchlights and Flights give a lot of what is expected from this group...loud and hard, with solid lyrics and some good dynamics musically. The lead single, Exit Calypsan, also offers some more of the Falling Up sound with some added bits that allow this disc to show some improvement from the first disc (Which was pretty solid to begin with).
One of the biggest things fans of the band will be surprised to hear on this disc is how prominent the keys are. The piano is a very big part of this disc. Tracks like Contact and Into The Gravity rely heavily on the keys to drive the song. Contact has a nice mix of quiet piano in the beginning leading into some heavier guitar-driven sounds, and it works quite well. Into The Gravity is one of the quieter tracks on the disc, and therefore relies almost solely on the keys to keep it moving. It's not a superb track, but it's certainly not terrible either.
The piano sound is there quite a bit on many tracks throughout the disc. Though less prominent on tracks like Moonlit and Cascades, it still adds a nice touch to these tracks. Moonlit's one major flaw is the fact that the chorus sounds remarkably similar to the bridge in Exit Calypsan. It begs the question of how creative these guys really are. Cascades is led off by an intro on the keys (And ends with the keys as well), but relies almost solely on the guitar riffs throughout the song to lead the way, and it ends up being a pretty solid track.
Dawn Escapes biggest issue, however, probably lies in the keys. There are no tracks that stick out as way below the others in quality of sound, vocals or lyrics, but it's hard to get away from the sound of keys on nearly all of the tracks. And they're certainly not bad additions to these songs, but they're just always there and, for a band that relied heavily on guitars and drums with a little bit of keys on their debut disc, it's a major shift to make in just one disc. That shift may turn off a few listeners to this disc.
Overall, however, Dawn Escapes is a solid sophomore release. Yes, the shift musically to an effort based much more on a keyboard than before certainly poses some issues for the disc as a whole. It's one of those discs that sounds solid on a song-by-song basis but will leave some listeners with a bad taste in their mouth when taking the disc as a whole.