Review: Devin Townsend Project - Epicloud

 When groove metal first began to be internationally recognised as a musical genre, it was never meant to be about brains, textured atmospheres or a genre that showed signs of progression. Yet when one of Steve Vai's finest students broke into the limelight in the form of frontman of Strapping Young Lad, the principles of the genre took from where Fear Factory at their finest left off and intense grooves where merged within utter monolith-ism, with all kinds of wit, ideas and impressive textures leading to greater heaviness made the genre more sophisticated than ever imaginable. That guy was Devin Townsend and in recent years of sobriety, he's unleashed The Devin Townsend Project, taking listeners on epic journeys through all kinds of different albums, each one never being the same experience. From the detailed layerings of Ki to the crushing heaviness of Addicted, to the shit-eating madness of Deconstruction to the soothing grace of Ghost. And when the series of albums, that were originally meant to end on Ghost goes through every style of the wide spectrum of Hevy Devy, where can we go next. Let's allow the latest installment Epicloud to answer the question.

 The answer is fairly simple in that respect. Townsend looks to using his creation of slabs of stony grooves in a more hook creating, more pop friendly style. With this, the songs of Epicloud find themselves textured within sweeping synthesizers, encased in emotion shifting sweetness or desolation and wrapped around in beautiful singling voices whether they come from Townsend, a selection of gospel singers and various other female voices to create a true album, where beauty, heaviness and dreamy progression meet. It sounds simple and it sounds like a step down from Townsend's previous ambitions within this project. But it also sounds like perfection recorded.

 It's difficult to know how to feel when the album begins with an intro of gossip singers on Effervescent!. It's ridiculously uplifting, though you can't  help but feel it should be unsettling, a deceptive intro into something far darker. Instead, the intro flourishes into the real opener of True North, which sees a delicate backdrop of female vocals explodes into a crushing sound of dense bass and drums and the massive grooves and vocals of Townsend and it may as well be the sound of triumph recorded on tape as the rest of the band effortlessly carry the same exuberance and enthusiasm that started the album. It's beautiful, but it also captivates the madness that Deconstruction built up without even needing to add funny sound effects or land speed record breaking riffs. The opening song is an amazing demonstration of what Townsend is capable of on it's own, as the emotional tone reaches a dramatic shift as the song moves along in a speed and understanding that perfectly grabs the listeners by the collars and allows them to glide through this buildup of tenseness and drama, without even trying.

 That's the basic nature of what Townsend is capable of for Epicloud but with every track a new layer of freshness and breathtaking excitement or emotional intensity is added. The same rush of joy and good times can be heard on Liberation that with it's rush of sugary riffage contains a spacey backdrop that owes so much debt to 1980's synthpop, that it shows a whole new range of influences for Townsend. Liberation itself uses these backdrops, heavy riffs and the oddly charming performance of Townsend at his harshest to create what The B-52's might have sounded like if they had been an extreme metal band, (And that is so far from an insult, I can't even express.) while the backdrop of Save Our Now is oddly reminiscent of A-ha's The Sun Always Shines On T.V. (Again, if you think I mean that in a derogatory manner, you will never know my love of classy 80's pop music. Keep the classy element in mind of that statement.)

 Even with this concentration of bringing poppy hooks and melodies into his songwriting, Epicloud still sees the unleashing of Hevy Devy. The grooves of Kingdom are nothing but violent displays of earth shaking density, that with it's fierce symphonic backdrop proves that Townsend's sense of madness still casts a prominent shadow over his songwriting. Meanwhile, his desire to simply unleash a bunch of adrenaline packed riffs and charge through a song with high velocity and high extremity can be heard well throughout More!. Both songs arguably host a new pinpoint in how ballsy and heavy Devin Townsend can make a song with his band around him.

 On a completely contrasting note, Epicloud has many moments of softness of toned down songs, that allow Devin to unleash his more graceful soothing vocal performances and the results of such a possibility are breathtaking in their total sincerity and vulnerability. Even against a sweeping atmosphere of synthesizers, the powerful vocal performance of Divine is one of the most real and believable moments of the album, that unleashes a real sense of pathos from the listeners of Townsend's blues ridden tones sings of love and assurance. It can be described in no other way than purely romantic. It really makes you want to run into the recording of the album to hug him. Think about that.

 Of course the real moments of wonder on the album are when the delicate melodies and crushing heaviness really come together to create musical results that people like you and me could only dream of. The delirious heaviness of the grooves on Grace mixed with the textured atmospheric melodies is the true sound of monolith-ism and delicacy come to life. Alongside this, I will seriously be horrified by anyone that hasn't shed a single tear by the time that Hold On, undoubtedly one of the most beautiful emotion laden metal songs of the year (Just outside of While She Sleeps, sorry.) has reached it's conclusion, as Townsend's performance that sounds less like a metal vocalist now, more a shining beacon of light takes us through crushing melodies packed with soulful yearning and utter beauty. By the time one reaches the uplifting end of the album on Angel, which effectively begins as the album started, you ought to come out feeling enlightened and nothing else.

 It may not impress those that want to hear the technical capabilities of The Devin Townsend Project, but if you want to hear a set of wonderfully crated songs that sound as deliriously mental as they do eye-openingly real, than Epicloud should prove itself to be one of  the finest records that Devin Townsend has put his name to. The intense heaviness, understanding of crafting a pop friendly song and ability to weave delicate soundscapes of breath-taking beauty that the band bring together for this album will take any listener into a near unreal state of euphoria and will guide listeners on a wide state of emotions while landing them on an ending that truly makes life worth living. And after listening to this album, all I can think to say is that is that doesn't sound like your idea of a good album, your entitled to your own opinion, but shame on you. This is the album groove metal was made for.

Devin Townsend Project's Epicloud is out now via HevyDevy Records. The band will tour the UK in December with Fear Factory and Sylosis.

Review: Axewound - Vultures

 I remember one time I believed that Bullet for My Valentine were the quintessential modern metal band that everyone that considered themselves a fan of metal loved. I'm hilarious. It turns out they're the band that all the real metal elitists love to slam to the ground more than any other band. So when it was announced last year that frontman Matt Tuck was working on a new side project that he claimed was "metal-as-fuck", very few people took him seriously. Personally, I hoped the project would reveal itself to be some kind of metalcore equivalent of Dave Grohl's Probot. What we got instead was Axewound, a so-called supergroup featuring members of Glamour of the Kill, Pitchshifter, Rise to Remain and the main selling point, lead vocals performed by Cancer Bats' Liam Cormier. And with the Bats already proving themselves to be on top form this year with their killer Dead Set on Living, the proposition of this supergroup suddenly became very exciting.

 More than anything, the excitement between a Bullet For My Valentine/Cancer Bats based lineup does really come from the dichotomy that both bands work in. While Cancer Bats have the sound of hardcore punk mixed with elements of sludge metal, they work in making what metalcore should have been considered as before it took off as a mainstream trend, back when Converge were known as metalcore, while Bullet For My Valentine have in recent times done what Metallica did on The Black Album with thrash metal and taken elements of metalcore and adapted it into a form that would sound effective in filling up Wembley Arena, as they have already managed to do.

 So in a world where thebest names in metalcore are the likes of While She Sleeps and Bury Tomorrow, neither Bullet or Cancer Bats really have the qualities that give those bands the 'core credentials that the have. Cancer Bats are too loose when they play (not that that's a bad thing) and BFMV are that bit more toned down and do focus a lot on their hooks when they play. (Not a bad thing either) With Axewound and their debut effort Vultures Tuck, Cormier and... the others that receive just as much attention, reveal their attempts to play in the same league as these bands while also having a bit of steel plated fun at the same time. Have they cracked it? On some levels, I s'pose.

 By some levels, it's obvious that there are some things that the album lives up to and other parts it doesn't live up to. The notion of the main band's performance sounding like a fiercer more sterile BFMV is true and right from the gritty riffs from Glamour of the Kill's Mike Kingswood and digging basslines from former Rise to Remain man Joe Copcutt on the album's title track, the density Axewound provides has definitely been turned up from Bullet's capabilities, even as the band launch into the single riff and crashing cymbal combo that any Slipknot fan will know can lead into a good song. In fact, there's a surprising amount of truly heavy moments to be found on this album. Though on of the more melodic offerings, single Cold features breakdowns that will judder the ground of any moshpit, while even Tuck's typically big booted guitar solos make a turn for the heavier during the likes of Burn Alive and Exorchrist.

 The fact that the efforts to make a genuine metal album rather than something totally mainstream sounding is also commendable. With the hardcore rush of Blood Money Lies, the band's shot at making their own Fucking Hostile, the heaviness and pace is picked up in a way that Bullet For My Valentine could never get away with or at least keep half their fanbase with.

 In that respect, Axewound is a more fun outing for Matt Tuck in the sense that he can get away with anything and being heavy in a way that would never sell as many records as Bullet could. But for Cancer Bats, the notion of making music they could get away with isn't a problem for them and in that sense, fronting a band with a slicker level of production doesn't really sound like the typical idea of Liam Cormier having fun. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he is, but with Axewound, Cormier sounds like he has to be more serious than he would when you listen to Hail Destroyer. In essence, it takes some time before it sounds like Cormier has reached his comfort zone, while members of these other hook heavy metalcore bands are trying to out-do each other on the scale of how heavy they can get, and isn't the concept of just wanting to be heavy the kind of concepts you hear about from bands that typically describe themselves as "br00t4l?" I'm just saying.

 To go back to this concept being a fun "metal as fuck" band, it becomes less apparent that fun is being had the more that Matt Tuck allows his vocals to appear on the album because frankly, Bullet For My Valentine started off with elements of an emo band and they've not gone away. An album that's meant to be "metal as fuck" should really not touch upon any balladry, yet Collide ventures into just that territory with a full scale piano intro, which is probably meant to be funny in how cheesy it sounds along with the further elements crafted on a cheap Casio keyboard. On other albums, this has worked but with a promise of pure metal, it just feels like a drag.

 Ever since the announcement of Axewound, I've wanted to love this band - I've talked about them before with high zest, even before discovering that "axe wound" was a slang term for female genitalia - but there's an expectation that the band doesn't live up to, which is a horrible thing to have when waiting so long. It definitely has it's moments of pure power, where it's promise to deliver music with a depth and heaviness that Bullet For My Valentine could never get away with, is effortlessly delivered, but does it have the qualikty that the group's new peers in While She Sleeps and Bury Tomorrow have? Definitely not, in fact there are moments that feel rather average and the desire from Matt Tuck to go as hard as possible at times feels restricted by Tuck himself. if supergroups are never meant to be as good as they're built up to be this is definitely an example of a supergroup that comes off as alright. Ultimately, I'll take Dead Set on Living over Vultures anyday.

Axewound's Vultures is out now via Sony Music Entertainment. The band are on tour of the UK now with The Smoking Hearts.

Review: Papa Roach - The Connection

 If ever there was a band that could teach you a lesson on what to do after your original style begins to die out, it's Papa Roach. Entering the world of music with their hook heavy collection of rap rock that was Infest at a time when the nu metal genre hit it's second more commercial wave, the band realised that this wasn't a style they could stick to, and sure enough as less attention and credibility went towards nu metal after it turned into something fairly awful, the band changed becoming certified carriers of modern day hard rock. It goes without saying that many people won't believe this and forever associate them as the rowdy band with that Last Resort song but those people will go on without realising how relevant a band Papa Roach manage to be. They won't become a part of The Connection, I guess.

 Even for a band that's been around for as long as Papa Roach, the connection still resembles a bold and brave outing for the Sacramento quartet. While 2009's Metamorphosis saw the band comfortably lay their typically catchy and uplifting hard rock songs in a world of sleaze and filth, this latest effort sees the massive riffs of Jerry Horton and mass vocal cries of Jacoby Shaddix immersed within a backdrop of more graceful and dramatic synthesized backdrops that suggests much attention being paid to the changing of music as a whole throughout the band.

 At first this makes the dramatic space age intro track Engage sound pompous, but when the rest of the album unfolds and one can hear the absorbing synthesizer backdrops that make up much of Silence is the Enemy, the dramatically bold Give Me Back My Life and the glowing Leader of the Broken Hearts, you can realise that this use of synthesizers is only the beginning of what turns out to be something huge.

 The very best moments in which these electronic moments take the forefront is in the hopelessly uplifting and emotion packed hard rock balladry of Before I Die, one of the album's highlights with it's rising of graceful dance pop electronics that fits perfectly with the Horton's pounding hooks and Tobin Esperance's driving basslines. When the synthesizers are mainly relied on for closer As Far As I Remember, it's a surprising chance to hear Papa Roach at their quietest, at their most soothing and peaceful, which is not something you're going to hear of a band like them often. And in this smoothness, a band known for being rowdy nu metal kids show that plenty of grace can be held in what they do as well.

 Of course, there's definitely a lot of bang for you buck to be found on The Connection. Straight from the album's real opener Still Swingin' the band play with a bruising display of alternative metal chugging and indestructibility. Still Swingin' itself actually shows the band returning briefly to their rap rock roots, albeit in a harsher, grittier form than Infest could have prepared us for. A similar notion can be picked up on Won't Let Us Up with a more hopelessly uplifting result, but with the likes of Breath You In and Not That Beautiful, the band can certainly still let their hair down and pack in the adrenaline.

 With that, The Connection is once again a sign of Papa Roach doing what they do best a little better. It's a further sign of progression that isn't afraid to re-visit where they came from at points and shows an awareness that one style of music can't just be stuck to in their busy ways of recording. And with this constant changing in dynamic, Papa Roach really can prove that they're one of the most expansive and forward thinking names in hard rock and go on leaving those who credit them for being those Last Resort Guys in the dust.

Papa Roach's The Connection is out now via Eleven Seven Music. The band will play at the O2 Academy, Brixton on the 10th-11th December with Stone Sour.

Review: Lower Than Atlantis - Changing Tune

 It goes without saying that Hertfordshire quartet Lower Than Atlantis have been feeling the love from certain members of the music press for some time now. Personally, it's taken ages for me to warm to them. Having spent months on end feeling horrified by the moany tone of the voice of frontman Mike Duce, I just haven't been able to bring myself to enjoy them until recently, where it seems that a moany tone of voice is perhaps the perfect thing for a set of brilliantly moany songs. So, what better time to get into them than now, ahead of the release of their third album in three consecutive years (always something that gets you extra praise or extra cynicism depending on what angle you come at it from) Changing Tune? As good a time as any, I suppose.

 Changing Tune undoubtedly screams of boldness everywhere you approach across the album. It's been obvious for some time now that Lower Than Atlantis have been looking to become the new faces on the big league of British rock bands that have kept coming through over the past few years and they put their all to get that message through across this album.

 This undoubtedly means it comes with obvious singles in the form of the current Love Someone Else, a two and a half minute punk rock belter that has been doing the rounds on Scuzz TV after the success of the major  album closer If the World Was to End, complete with a massive "na-na-na" section to let the album go out on a positive vibe became a TV staple just months before. And it's not likely to end there either. With it's array of Foo Fighter-isms in it's abrasive melodies, Something Better Came Along is likely to make it into singles territory along side the irresistibly danceable rhythms put into Showtime and Counting Sheep both works of music that suggest Duce has an understanding on how to make a song with a swagger within them.

 Of course, when you look at the kind of influences heard across Changing Tune, Lower Than Atlantis were never going to be a band with songs that weren't going to be massive. In spite of it's sense of desolation and earthly tones, listening to the main melodies of Move Along sounds akin to something you may have heard from New Found Glory or Sum 41 in their golden age of 2002 only turned more mature. With the grace and ethereal production that song and the grungy chaos of Normally Strange has to offer, there's as much enthusiasm to be found in the same places.

 That's not to say the album is a fully mature process. Hearing Duce's performance and lyrics on the likes of Go On Strike and I Know a Song That Will Get on Your Nerves doesn't suggest britpop as much as it suggests bratpop. Both songs a range of rapidly driven pop punk riffage fueled by Duce's scathing tone that couldn't be anything else but cheeky little drivels of utter fun.

 Of course fun can only last so long and when you're a band like Lower Than Atlantis that deal exclusively in conventionally structured pop rock songs with an average length of two and a half to three minutes, it's asking a bit much to have an album with seventeen tracks on it. By the time we get to Time Flies, we get to a stage of realising that song titles might not always necessarily reflect real life and things start becoming repetitive and un-engaging with only the established single of If the World Was to End saving the album from ending on a low. Even the ska punk rhythms of Short Way Home can't spark any life into the closing sections. Perhaps if the band went the entire ska route for the song and had a solid trumpet backdrop, things may have been different.

 With the exception of the lull that puts the album on a filler-induced downward slope for the end of the album, Changing Tune proves itself to be a solid album of blissful rock songs that show off influences from basically any melodic rock band that first got big in the 1990's. Although don't quote me exactly on that before people begin asking how it's reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails and Limp Bizkit. Perhaps a real challenge of writing an album is to work out when enough is enough and that's something Lower Than Atlantis could have done here, but if the effort of Changing Tune is solid enough to get previous cynics like me to get into the band and get into last year's World Record and 2010's Far Q then something must be going right for them. And who am I to get in the way of a band's success with my impatience?

Lower Than Atlantis' Changing Tune is out now via Universal Island Records. The band are on tour of the UK now with The Dangerous Summer, Don Broco and Gnarwolves.

Review: Mumford & Sons - Babel

 It's about time we examined this album at ROARF, now that officially no one will stop talking on and on about London born folk rockers Mumford & Sons. On the release of their 2010 debut album Sigh No More and the constant playing of singles like Little Lion Man and Winter Winds, I naturally assumed that this band would attract the attention of a middle aged audience for a solid couple of months and then fade away to never be recognised instead. A year and a decent amount of confused and spiteful remarks from my peers at school whenever I said I didn't like them later and it became obvious that this wasn't the case. No, with the country constantly on search for a band that plays it safe and writes mediocre songs, Marcus Mumford & Co effectively made it into the hearts of the nation and became the new torchbearers of blandness.

 So, with their position as a household name across the UK firmly established, the quartet return with their sophomore effort Babel with a UK tour on hand that involves playing at the Caird Hall in Dundee, to the delirious excitement to basically everyone I know from the city (Including  a very good friend of mine, so if you are reading this, please forgive me from everything you've read so far and are about to read.) And when they hit the road the new songs that they bring on board with them will be more songs that show their best efforts to pen a perfect song, that really do show their best efforts to be credible musicians with a unique flair from the rest of the uber mainstream alternative bunch but ultimately cannot avoid that central vanilla flavoring.

 In many ways, it's a sad fact that they cannot pass this undying sense of blandness because right from the crashing opening of the album's title track you can tell that this is loaded with ambition. Mumford wails "I cry Babel, Babel, look at me now, the walls of my town they come crumbling down!" in such a scathing tone that a sense of passion and belief is most definitely there in all he does and the attempt to make big poppy hooks armed only with traditional folk instruments and a sprinkling of bass guitar is done to the best of the band's ability, but the full impact that many of their alt rock contemporaries (No, not Two Door Cinema Club or The Vaccines) could make just isn't there.

 This is pretty much the ultimate feeling across the album, whether it's the more upbeat natures of the title track, the Little Lion Man clone that is lead single I Will Wait and the surprising amount of adrenaline packed riffs that come out on Hopeless Wanderer.

 It's also the same feeling that comes out in the album's more delicate moments. From the weeping balladry of Ghosts That We Used to Know and Broken Crown there's simply an array of overtly simple folk work that one just cannot find engaging in any form. It's a shame, it certainly feels like something you should like because lyrics like "So lead me back/ Turn me south from that place/ And close my eyes from my recent disgrace" can't have been the kind of lyrics to roll straight off the tongue. They quite clearly took a lot of thought and difficult passion. And to see Mumford's lyrics have such bland uninspired music accompanying it sounds like Mumford's received the raw end of some kind of deal.

 The final reflection one has upon listening to Babel is that I can't help but feel sorry for Mumford & Sons in some way. They try so hard to write the perfect song but if all the effort is put into the lyrics and second to none put into the music, then it's always going to come off as bland. And that's exactly the problem this album suffers. There's nothing engaging within the way the band plays because the constant burst of banjos that they've chosen to rely on isn't so much fun as it is repetitive. I know many people will make some kind of claim that it's actually all about the lyrics rather than the music and I will agree that the lyrics are highly engaging, but if it's all about the lyrics, maybe Marcus Mumford could look to poetry as an option. He'd gain much respect and school pupils could write essays on his work. But then, he wouldn't be selling out The Caird Hall with a job like that so, fair play to Mumford & Sons for being another one of those successful bands that make me look like a jealous loser when I write about how I dislike them.

Mumford & Sons' Babel is out now via Universal Island Records. The band will tour the UK from November-December.

Live review: While She Sleeps, The Garage, Glasgow

 Last night was without a doubt a special event for all the hundreds, possibly thousands that gathered into the modestly sized venue that is the Garage in Glasgow. For many, last night was a chance to let one's hair down with a big night of moshpit inducing metal (Maybe after their first real week of university) and for others it's a chance to truly witness the live spectacle that is a show by While She Sleeps. After the constant layerings of positive press towards the band and the 5 spade worthy performance recorded on their debut album This is the Six and the past glory felt on their 2010 mini album The North Stands for Nothing, it's surely time to complete the While She Sleeps experience by seeing them live. And that's what yours truly managed to do when they tore The Garage in Glasgow apart on their first headlining tour of the UK.

 As I take an examination of the people that are also going to the show, it's fairly staggering of just how diverse the metal bands seen on the T-Shirts of all those attending the gig are. Obviously While She Sleeps T-Shirts and T-Shirts for main support act Bleed From Within are in large supply, but you can see T-Shirts ranging from such established names of Iron Maiden, Guns N' Roses and Metallica, to fellow names in metalcore in the vain of Bring Me the Horizon, Asking Alexandria and Suicide Silence and while we're at it, people have Attila, Blink-182 and Saint Vitus shirts on. Clearly, the promise of While She Sleeps has been attracting rock and metal fans of an extremely broad nature. I myself showed up adorned in my Lamb of God T-Shirt as a way to express the Ramblings of a Rock Fan view on This is the Six that it is the kind of album that the Virginia quintet intended the set the path for when the Virginia quintet released the modern metal icon that is Ashes of the Wake.

 As the initial group of those queuing enter The Garage, it's just in time to get there for the opening act POLAR. to begin tearing the venue a new one from a fairly early stage. It's commendable that the band do make such a real effort to put on as fierce a show as the can as the venue is definitely only half full at this point and if they're putting in a full effort, the crowd certainly aren't. It's only when they unleash established single H.E.L.L from their killer new album iron Lungs that everyone treats them like headliners. The only full hearted reaction to the band comes from the people occupying the empty part of the venue between the front of the stage and the bar, known as "hardcore dancers", an activity that I've heard of before in a not exactly positive fashion, but seeing the kind of insanity that it allowed for, I guess it works, if not really my idea of gig etiquette.

Somehow, the reaction that POLAR. receives from their last song alone immediately makes them a serious contender to take away the award for band of the evening and it certainly makes it already difficult for zany electro-metallers Crossfaith to top. But the Japanese sextet certainly put a full effort into making the evening their own and their selection of big songs, whether it's the drum and bass with breakdowns of Snake Code or the riff heavy cover of The Prodigy's Omen. It's with them, they suddenly find the amount of people jumping up and down to their songs and number of moshpits they've created increasing. And with that they exit the stage with a whole lot of new fans and hopefully in a world where bands that mix metalcore and electronic elements pop up at a regular basis, let's hope these guys get remembered.

 Often times when you visit a gig, it will be a local band that opens up the show. And I suppose, it's testament to local boys Bleed From Within to how far they've come over the course of two albums that they're the main support for this tour. Naturally, when they board the stage here in Glasgow, they receive a heroes welcome, with a backdrop in their name already being set up. And frankly, it's little wonder such a warm welcome is being received, Glaswegian or not, they manage to raise the roof commanding every soul in the room to get jumping up and down to their viscous metalcore assaults, as each breakdown sounds like an extra layer of monolith-ism being served up. By the time their set ends they've put on a set triumphant enough for this tour to have been headlined by them. It's almost difficult to imagine how tonight's headliners are going to top this.

 But of course they do, which is no disrespect to the previous bands, but they manage to serve as an effective set up to display just how powerful and formidable a set from While She Sleeps really is. They obviously provide the highlights of the evening, following a welcome from the audience that suggests the meeting of metalcore royalty, the launch straight into the intense bouncing rhythms of Until the Death before launching the rest of the night into the ultimate setlist to soundtrack devastation. As frontman Loz Taylor screams out "WE ARE ALL DEAD BEHIND THE FUCKING EYES", the crowd instantly assembles themselves into the millionth wall of death of the evening and perform them with as much, if not more passion than every other wall of death performed that night. Meanwhile, the likes of Be(lie)ve and Our Courage, Our Cancer manage to sound tighter, heavier and packed with a more emotional impact and bigger melody live than they ever could on record as the beautifully constructed guitar work of Sean Long and Mat Welsh is projected tightly across the room for the audience to simply lap up. The entire set is an array of kinetic chaos and it is finally when This is the Six's title track is blisteringly performed that my personal time in the moshpits reach levels of pure euphoria that it feels like having an outer body experience. As Loz finally elaborates correctly on how Glasgow always has the ability to have some of the most mental crowds at metal shows, the band close the set with the beautiful Seven Hills as Loz launches himself into the crowd to be carried by masses of adoring fans. Including myself. With that the evening ends, with While She Sleeps journey to becoming the metal band on everyone's lips becoming stronger than ever.

 And with that, another evening of intense metal, perfectly written songs that I've always wanted to hear live and on the whole terrible photography is over, but it's not going to be a night that I'll forget any time soon. The devastating power that all the bands delivered was enough to get walls of death going from the crowd within the first few minutes of the gig. After several late nights of partying and pub visiting to break me into university, it's so refreshing to know that in terms of good times impact-full moments and everlasting memories, rock and metal gigs still do the finest jobs of great nights out, especially when you consider a band as truly special and game-changing as While She Sleeps proved themselves to be. After lat night my opinion of While She Sleeps has become higher than it was when I originally heard This is the Six in it's entirety. So with that and lack of a better idea, I will end this review with the same sentence I used to finish my review of that album:

 While She Sleeps are the new kings of metal. And they demand their crown now.

Review: As I Lay Dying - Awakened

 2012 seems to be an exciting time if you're a member of San Diego quintet As I Lay Dying. The general reception towards the band from any corner of modern metal fans seems to be growing higher than ever before. And with highly regarded performances at this year's Download and Mayhem festivals and much talk that their sixth album Awakened is the one that is going to officially make them a true household name in the world of modern metal, it seems that the band have finally reached a milestone in their career that they have become respected as a band that can deliver whole hearted passion and whole hearted brutality, rather than being cast aside as some Christian band, as so many have done before.

 This time around, As I Lay Dying have a wide legion of metal fans old and new and the results on their sixth studio album and those eager people are most definitely getting a bang for their buck. Opener Cauterize presents a standard of what this album can give us with Nick Hipa and Phil  slamming out crushing riffage filled with the beatdowns that remind listeners of just how much influence As I Lay Dying have really taken from hardcore with lead guitar that reminds us that the band would also be nothing without the influence from the best in traditional heavy metal.

 It's with this amazing combination that the band deliver some fully charged brutality and the steel plated breakdowns of A Greater Foundation and No Lungs to Breathe have no problem in delivering a roundhouse kick to the face of any listener that will leave them begging for more in the way of violent grooves blast beats from Jordan Mancino and more basslines reminiscent to Rex Brown's finest moments courtesy of Josh Gilbert. More than that, the performance of modern-day philosopher frontman Tim Lambesis on the likes of the awe-inspiring Wasted Words displays him possibly at his most furious ever. That so much fury can come out of one gentleman is incredible.

 However, Lambesis' strong point really comes out in the more melodic moments of Awakened. Most importantly in this respect is the the vocals unleashed in the middle section of My Only Home, a moment in which we quite possibly hear Lambesis at his most vulnerable and exposed in such a way that may actually shock you. 

 Elsewhere, the most interesting element of As I Lay Dying's melodic moments is the fact that one of the most respected band's in modern metalcore may actually be a band with some pop sensibilities after all. Working with Bill Stevenson, the drummer of The Descendants -one of the true originators of pop punk as we know it today - seems to have taught the band something about writing a big hook. There are some old school fans that may be furious with Whispering Silence which plays out with an intro that wouldn't sound out of place on A Day To Remember's Homesick and the fact that Lambesis' clean sections on Defender sound so pop-induced that it's surprising that the song isn't featuring a guest appearance from Alesana's Shawn Milke, but if you like your big hooks and pop punk moments, it's actually quite a dynamic moment in the respect of As I Lay Dying's outset of brutality and the way they manage to make these moment of hooks as convincing as they make their breakdowns and shredding.

 It's with this immense combination of brutality, hooks and physical and emotional intensity that As I Lay Dying manage to make another album that puts them on top of the metalcore league, a position they previously held with the release of 2007's stellar An Ocean Between Us which 2010's The Powerless Rise never really managed to live up to. If people were wondering if the band could rise up to the position of metalcore legends, Awakened should be an album that proves that they have the credentials to do so, or at least be able to not join Trivium in the realm of great modern metal bands that are playing as a support group to Asking Alexandria (I see those American tour posters. Get it sorted.) However, whatever comes of their touring schedule, for now the band have been able to create what is essentially an amazing package of metalcore that will satisfy the traditionalist fans of the genre while also containing moments that those that enjoy their pop induced core music can pick up on. It's little wonder the positive reception towards A I Lay Dying has grown higher than ever this year. They simply have it all.

As I Lay Dying's Awakened is out now via Metal Blade. The band will tour the UK in October with Trivium, Caliban and Upon a Burning Body.