Band:	As I Lay Dying
Album:	Frail Words Collapse
Style:	Melodic metalcore
Release date:	July 01, 2003
A review by:	Herzebeth

01. 94 Hours
02. Falling Upon Deaf Ears
03. Forever
04. Collision
05. Distance Is Darkness
06. Behind Me Lies Another Fallen Soldier
07. Undefined
08. A Thousand Steps
09. The Beginning
10. Song 10
11. The Pain Of Separation
12. Elegy

When a friend recommended this band told me "man you have to listen As I Lay Dying, it sounds like ZAO and stuff" I thought; well ZAO is pure crap but man they are not in Metal Blade Records like As I Lay Dying so let's give this guys a chance.

So this is a Warning do not go and buy albums just because a friend told you the band was great, As I Lay Dying is a weird combo of a lot of genres, Emo, Alternative, Hardcore, Metalcore, Industrial, Pop, and some other genres I don't know; but that's not the entire point, the band is mediocre as a raw sunny side up breakfast, The guitars are monotonous, The vocals Oh My God the vocals are incredibly lame, the bass is so low-tuned that reminds me of Korn, the drumming is actually not as bad as the other instruments but well I feel Jordan Mancino can do better than that, and the lyrics are childish "how can I bear this any longer?I'm dying inside, emptied before you take me into your arms?" I mean what are we like 10?.It just takes one hear to tracks like "Song 10" or "Undefined" to feel the awful performance, and dull execution.

I really do not know why Metal Blade Records signed "As I Lay Dying" why insulting bands such as "Vader", "Vomitory", "Cattle Decapitation", "Flotsam & Jetsam", "Gorerotted", "Goatwhore"? for money, publicity, what?. I don't know what pisses me more the fact that this band is bad or the fact that they are signed with Metal Blade.

Anyway not everything is bad in "Frail Words Collapse" the production is actually very good indeed, and so the cover art (the skull is really cool), the mixing and engineering of the album is incredibly clean (even those seconds of distortion and static sound clean), and I can guess why, bands like this are meant or made for guys who do not stand or do not like pure metal, so they try to sound twisted, brutal, and hard but with terrible execution and worst final product, the labels invest a lot in the production because they are aware of the band's lack of technique.

The formula applies here, do not judge an album (or a book) because of it's cover, you will be disappointed, I will rate this album with a reasonable 5 because of the great production and the ok drumming. When I hear a bad album I usually do not make a review of it, but in this case I made it because it's more a warning than a review, DON'T BUY THIS ALBUM.