Experimenting With Dawn is a Nashville-based rock outfit featuring vocalist Gabrielle Fae and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Michael Louis. The band doesn’t have a full project out, but they uploaded a wave of singles onto their Bandcamp profile back in March. The six songs showcase the key components of the band’s sound, which combines gothic, hard rock and darkwave (new wave with dark imagery) elements with brooding, dramatic lyrical themes.

“Stranger to Me,” a straightforward alt-rocker with tight instrumentation and vocals from Louis, features some of the best lyrics of the batch, painting a vivid picture without going too over-dramatic and gothic. That’s matched with melodic guitar riffs and uptempo drums for a solid introduction to the duo.

Things get a little weird on the 2015 track “Primal Need.” The single art features the words “sex,” “fetish” and “hunger” on the cover, and that pretty much covers the tone and themes of the track. The sci-fi synths and phrases like “carnal need” and “eager meat” lend the song a quality that would work well in the late-’80s industrial sequel to Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The remaining tracks released by Experimenting With Dawn are pretty hit-or-miss. “Bring the Moon” has the best production of all the tracks, featuring a layered mix and dynamic choruses, but is otherwise forgettable. “Falter” is a solid hard rocker reminiscent of the tamer moments of metal acts like Metallica and Megadeth. “Mad Descension” and “Burden,” meanwhile, are slower-paced and just come off as boring with really loaded lyrics.

If you have an ear for gothic and darkwave material, these singles will be right down your alley. But, if you’re like me, the dark overtones and random mentions of the word “blood” just don’t resonate very well. But who knows, maybe they’ll sound better when the gloomier Halloween vibes of October rise up later this year.

Experimenting with Dawn’s catalog can be found on Bandcamp and Spotify.