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Daylight Dies - Dismantling Devotion

Rating

RIYL

Rapture
Amorphis
Katatonia

Label

Candlelight Records

Tracklist

1. Life Less Lived
2. Dead Air
3. Dream Resigned
4. All We Had
5. Solitary Refinement
6. Strive to See
7. Lies That Bind
8. Dismantling Devotion

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Recent Ratings
Rick Gebhardt

With a band name like Daylight Dies, you’d probably expect to hear anything but out of the ordinary material here. Unless you actually knew a little bit about this band, you might even overlook this band completely, with so many other bands out there with the words die, dying, died, and dies in their name, it can get pretty confusing on the battlefield called music. Luck was on my side however, when I came across Daylight Dies.

Dismantling Devotion starts off with the classical acoustic riff of the first track “A Life Less Lived”, which leads into some powerful power chords that really set the mood. If you’ve ever heard doom/goth-styled bands from Norway or Finland, Daylight Dies follows a fairly similar equation which is: slow power chord riffage + epic sound = success! Of course, in order to be “epic” you have to throw in guitar solos, and keep the crowd guessing with a progressive style, and the band does just that.

The vocals are a semi-typical distant guttural growl that sounds kind of like you’re being called upon by the vocalist from a lonely stage in an arena where he also has a fan blowing his hair so gently and a single spotlight shining down on him. Ok, maybe you won’t get images of cheesy 80s hair metal videos in your mind, but the slight reverb effect definitely does the vocals justice and would completely ruin the vibe if the studio effect was absent. Every once in awhile the growls take a rest and melodic singing comes out to play. A key example of this vocal ability can be found on the track “Solitary Refinement”, which also has some great dueling guitars and happens to cause a real desolate feeling to come over you.

While it might have been out of the norm for Daylight Dies, it really would have helped to have some faster stuff here and there to keep someone from falling asleep to the melodies on this CD. It also would have really set a few tracks apart from each other instead of making everything sound like it’s just gradually running together into one song. Unfortunately, the long track times (most are over 6 minutes, or close to 6 minutes) and drawn out, repetitive riffs really limit how much you can listen to Dismantling Devotion. It’s not an “anywhere, anytime” kind of CD, but in the end, it is really just for anyone that’s looking for a great blend of complete opposites: relaxing and barbaric.

--Cory Rennison

Author

morphineseason

Last updated: 09/29/2009 08:54PM