Rock Opera DAWN OF PARADISE Due Out 7/15

PARADISE - consisting of the Portland-by-way-of-Chicago husband/wife team of guitarist/vocalist Steven Denekas and vocalist/keyboardist Tamar Berk - have fashioned a loving homage to the classic rock opera in their third album, Dawn of Paradise, a double-vinyl LP which gleefully references the likes of The Who's Tommy, Pink Floyd's The Wall, David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, Yes' Tales of Topographic Oceans and even such recent efforts as Green Day's American Idiot.

The album was produced by the legendary Ron Nevison, the engineer for The Who's Quadrophenia and Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti whose production credits include Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees such as Heart, Ozzy Osbourne, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Chicago and Jefferson Airplane. Available as a double-vinyl LP with a download code and on all streaming services, Dawn of Paradise will be released on Friday, July 14, through Burnside Distribution. That will be followed by a special listening party/laser show at Kendall Planetarium at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) in their adopted hometown of Portland on Saturday night, July 15th.

A sprawling epic described as "one man's journey from a child to a God," Dawn of Paradise deals with issues of birth and death, mortality and transcendence, religion and politics, the illuminati and the psychosexual relationship between a mother and son, who matures from a puppet in a conspiracy by the shadow government into its mater, a narcissistic Nietzschean uber-mensch rock God.

"It's a fable about manipulating the masses through rock 'n' roll," says Tamar, who collaborated on the creation of Dawn of Paradise, which took more than three years, with her husband, veterans of several indie bands both in Chicago and now in Portland, on such prestigious indie labels as Kill Rock Stars, Minty Fresh, In the Red and Invisible Records.

Paradise's two previous albums, 2012's Diary of an Old Soul and 2014's Soldiers of the Modern Age, found them consciously progressing from mid-'60s British Invasion garage-rock mod R&B like Small Faces through the late-'60s-early '70s psychedelic art-rock-soul.

"We set out to start a band that went through that history, we wanted to live that out, and feel what it would be like," says Tamar. "We have our own sound, but we never established any particular style. The idea was to evolve."

The result is Down of Paradise, their most ambitious work yet, and one that attracted the attention of world-renowned Ron Nevison, who answered a cold email with interest, revealing, much to the band's amazement, he lived in nearby Hood River, and was looking for a local project to sink his teeth into. "It was kismet," marvels Tamar. "We were just a local band from Portland with a dream." Recalls Nevison, " Paradise is a band with a great concept, that is very much out of The Who's Quadrophenia mold of which I was a participant, superbly crafted and expertly performed"

The band recorded with Nevison at Hallowed Halls in Portland, which Tamar describes as "this beautiful, ornate building which used to be a library, with a great vibe. The experience with Ron was amazing, everything we hoped it would be."

Paradise then headed north to Vancouver, where they mixed the album at Crossroads Productions, a "megachurch" with a vintage mixing console that Nevison used to work on back in the day.

And while Tamar prefers the meaning of Dawn of Paradise be left to each listener, she does reveal, "I pulled in stuff from being both a mother and a fourth-grade teacher. The relationship between parent and child goes through many different phases."

With the addition of drummer Thom Sullivan and bassist Allen Hunter, Paradise brings both craft and passion to what Tamar isn't hesitant to call a rock opera, jump-starting the genre for 2017. The first video, for the instrumental, "Theme and Variation," has already been posted, and now plans are in place to visualize the rest of the album, along with an accompanying theatrical presentation to play it live.

As to the question, why a rock opera, Tamar answers, why not?

"Concept albums are still very popular," she says. "Everyone from Beyonce to Twenty One Pilots are putting out these incredible works. But there's a difference between a concept album and a rock opera. In a concept album, the songs all relate to the same theme, but a rock opera tells a concrete story. It takes you on a physical and spiritual journey, a distinct narrative. Steven and I wrote these songs with that in mind."

"I will deliver the final sermon," says the main character at the climax of Dawn of Paradise. With the help of producer/engineer extraordinaire Ron Nevison, Paradise's Steven Denekas and Tamar Berk have done just that, breathing fresh life into an age-old genre.

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