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As I Lay Dying
Shadows Are Security
Metal Blade CD
"Hollow out this machine like chest / With its gears that turn to make me feel / And assembled thoughts that fade away / Remove from me / This deception that I called love."*
How can As I Lay Dying follow up the amazing Frail Words Collapse? With an even more bracing release like Shadows Are Security. Yes!
As I Lay Dying maintains the technical proficiency, the Gothenburg muscle, the sharp knifing riffs, and the deep forceful vocal delivery that was so prominent on Frail Words Collapse. However, there's progression. As I Lay Dying refuses to box itself in with an ironclad melodic metal attack. Aggressive and driven by melody, tracks like "Confined" and "The Darkest Nights" are more rhythmically active, with soaring sung vocals and guitar riffs endlessly somersaulting forward.
The one standout aspect of the newest offering that was immediate right away was the crystalline production that definitely helps give the well-executed Shadows Are Security that extra kick. Every jackhammer double-bass drumbeat, every cutting guitar note, every guttural lyric is felt and absorbed. Incorporating some metallic crunches and dueling guitars to generate a unrelenting melodic metal approach, San Diego's As I Lay Dying will leave listeners scathed and battered, yet wanting more. Dan Weyandt of Zao lends his bellowing vocal chords to one of the more ravenous tracks on Shadows, "Control Is Dead," which definitely creates that extra dimension of brutality that matches nicely with the Zao-esque closer "Illusions."
Shadows Are Security slashes and hacks with enough ferocity to give any of As I Lay Dying's metal contemporaries a run for their battleaxe. Like a starving wolf, As I Lay Dying's rapacious hunger uncompromisingly tears and mauls listeners with potent, melodic metal that will please fans of At the Gates, Darkest Hour, In Flames, All That Remains, and The Haunted.
by Fake Train
*Taken from "Through Struggle"
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