This album starts with a quick drum blast jumping right into the sort of melodic death metal that was popular a couple years ago. Apparently As They Sleep is pretty consistent in their style. The band is part of the recent signings to Solid State Records and seems like a perfect fit. This is heavy spirit filled metal to put it simply. Once again a band in the metal realm has gone the concept album route. This one sort of being about the rise and fall of empires or dynasties. It;s hard to tell how accurate their lyrics are on this concept since i don't have the lyrics.
Needless to say the singer works in the trademark metal scream. The vocals themselves are not offensive at all they just create a sense of boredom really. They stay at the same tone throughout not seeming to have a real interest in the lyrics that are getting said in particular. The guitars keep things in the In Flames, Darkest Hour contingency not really putting anything out of place. Every riff seems pushed in the sort of melodic death metal direction. In this case none of the riffs really feel like they have hooks. Everything in the case of the instruments is very workmanlike. Nothing is out of the norm just constantly moving forward. Every once in awhile there will be a heavy breakdown or a short lead part but there isn't really anything that sticks out from song to song.
The production is clean beyond words. There is nothing that says that there weren't a ton of overdubs and compression done on this record. That isn't always a bad thing, but in this case it takes much of the humanity and emotion out of the recording. Everything else feels very by the book. The cover is very metal looking logo and all. There are some vague mosh parts and solos. There is really nothing to make this album stick out from the rest of the Solid State catalog. Thankfully there are no soaring, emotional, melodic vocals on this one. Just melodic death metal nothing more nothing less.Maybe next time there will be stronger riffing, or a deeper interest in hooks until then This will cover anyone's jones for some heavy background music.
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