Band:	When The Deadbolt Breaks
Album:	In The Ruins, No Light Shall Shine
Style:	Doom metal, Sludge metal
Release date:	May 02, 2006
A review by:	jupitreas

01. Discord Moment
02. Collapsing, Color The Sun
03. Ingrate
04. Somewhere Between Murder And A Wet Dream
05. Anaharta
06. Night On Bald Mountain
07. Fist Full of Flowers And An Empty Handgun
08. The Cleansing Light

When The Deadbolt Breaks is one of those rare doom metal bands that are actively pursuing new, exciting musical ideas, instead of relying on tired genre conventions that, as good as they originally might have been, now have been played to death. The Americans draw from inspiration from many genres, most notably hardcore and post-metal, although there are also plenty of "what the??" moments on In The Ruins, No Light Shall Shine to make it interesting for even the most bored of listeners out there (yes, that means losers like me and you).

As is often the case with bands that aren't afraid to reach out and explore unconventional musical territories, the experiments don't always work. There is a fair share of such missteps on this album. For example, check out those god-awful female vocals. Ironically, Aaron Lewis, the band's lead vocalist, has quite an impressive range and there really seems to be no point of going for one of those "beauty and the beast" moments in the context of this album. Also, the band occasionally seems to go off on a completely unnecessary dirge that lasts forever and messes up the overall flow of the album?

Still, these faults are really just small details in a whole that is to a large extent very impressive. Let my favorite track on the album, "Collapsing, Color The Sun" be a good example here. The beginning of the song sounds to me like Swans-meets-Scott Walker and it slowly builds up into a wonderfully aggressive and expressive climax that a band like Neurosis or Cult Of Luna would not be ashamed of. That is just the beginning though, since the track is an intricate 14 minute composition with many heights and lows in intensity. The band is able to impress me like this on numerous occasions throughout In The Ruins, No Light Shall Shine and this ultimately makes the album a winner for me.

Hopefully in the future the band will either ditch or significantly improve the female vocals and then they will definitely become one of the most interesting acts in the doom metal genre. I wish them good luck and recommend this release to anyone who finds My Dying Bride a bit too conventional and boring.