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As I Lay Dying - Awakened review



Reviewer:
7.0

181 users:
7.92
Band: As I Lay Dying
Album: Awakened
Release date: September 2012


Disc I
01. Cauterize
02. A Greater Foundation
03. Resilience
04. Wasted Words
05. Whispering Silence
06. Overcome
07. No Lungs To Breathe
08. Defender
09. Washed Away
10. My Only Home
11. Tear Out My Eyes
12. Unwound [B Side Demo]
13. A Greater Foundation [Extended Demo Version]

Disc II [Limited Edition DVD]
+ The Making of Awakened
+ Music Video's
    1 - I Never wanted
    2 - Parallels
    3 - Anodyne Sea [With Making Of]
    4 - Electric Eye [Judas Priest cover]
    5 - Paralyzed
    6 - Cauterize [Lyric video]

Tim Lambesis's army has launched another rocket to the fans by dropping As I Lay Dying's sixth studio album namely Awakened. Since we know that last EP (Decas) wasn't up to the mark and also gave us a haze of chaos "feelings" about what the new album would be like, well, Awakened stood up the best from its worst and has lives up to the expectations. As I Lay Dying's journey has always been unsettling through bewildering albums and horror play of mixing up styles between hardcore and metalcore but it's imperative that As I Lay Dying, no matter what, they've always settled for the status quo. With superbly talented producer Bill Stevenson taking charge of Awakened, my optimistic gas kit kicked in up high.

Channelling up to 43 mins of beastly melody and commotion into much cohesion, Tim's army dug into personal reflections with a strong motive in creating balance and powerful songs which reflected the shadow of their niche The Powerless Rise. While drifting from a structured approach of incoherent hardcore style, As I Lay Dying has now injected massive melodies and rowdy production while getting lenient towards the theatrical sound of metalcore. Ferocity remained the groundwork for Diego veterans. Okay, the album opener "Cauterize" belligerently fired on us with catchy licks, memorable enough hooks, Tim's screaming dropping in loops making this track stand out and immediately grab your attention. An old adage goes in cricket "a good start wins you 50% of the match"; which sure as hell applies to this new record as well. The momentum carried onto more tracks like "Whispering Silence" and "Tear Out My Eyes," where over the top clean-choruses fly superbly with a blend of slick melody and back up instrumentation. Sadly, post-"Overcome" the record went downhill with an old virus of "chaos" and the whole album is swallowed in mediocrity of hardcore and metalcore confusion. But, I appreciate it for what they did in the first half of the album.

The last half was mainly covering the theme of Fragile Words Collapse or Shadows Of Security with intersecting melody reminding of the slightly sombre, almost downer realization this records hints at times. It was feel of old AILD records playing and not pushing the envelope further to regain and sharpen their sound. Nevertheless they weren't too off from home base, they can still crunch, shred and scream with dominance and passion. In totality, this was just another As I Lay Dying record to fill in the catalogue; same aggression, musically altered with strong melodic work and bringing clean vocals into the mix.

Well, if you take into the consideration of the standard of As I Lay Dying albums, I felt this is cut above the rest but weigh on same scale of The Powerless Rise. My recommendation to fans will be buy this record at your own emotions. The competition of mealcore scene might sway away your decision not to buy this record but it's not that terrible to ignore it completely.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 7
Songwriting: 7
Originality: 7
Production: 8

Written by Cynic Metalhead | 26.03.2014




Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.


Comments

Comments: 2   Visited by: 33 users
27.03.2014 - 01:06
Rating: 7
Darth Mitchell
Mitchell
It's not a bad album, but much more prefer "The Powerless Rise". The songs from that album are more memorable than the ones from Awakened. The Deluxe edition has some fun extra's on the DVD and the album booklet has comments from the band members on every song.
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27.03.2014 - 09:55
Rating: 7
Cynic Metalhead
Paisa Vich Nasha
Written by Darth Mitchell on 27.03.2014 at 01:06

It's not a bad album, but much more prefer "The Powerless Rise". The songs from that album are more memorable than the ones from Awakened.


Sure, it was.

I actually tossed up this album with TPR only on brilliant conceptualization of melodic sound. The Powerless Rise was more on an hardcore style with good use of metalcore elements and over the top Tim's vocals fitted in, it wasn't an average blow. We know how awful discographies of AILD is and dropping "Awakened" at the time when this band was nearly crushed, this album try to put dust on medicority AILD was going through. Still lacked in many terms as far as good metalcore records are concerned.
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