AS I LAY DYING – Through Storms Ahead

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• Bands:
  AS I LAY DYING
• Duration: 00:45:11
• Available from: 11/15/2024
• Label:

• Napalm Records

Streaming not yet available

By now As I Lay Dying are a bit of a laughing stock on the metalcore scene, with Tim Lambesis having become practically unsustainable from a human point of view: after having disavowed his Christian faith, having been convicted of the attempted murder of his ex-wife, having crashed the internet by managing to set up (for a short time) an effective reunion… here he falls for it again.
We don't know what happened and perhaps we will never know, but, a few weeks after the release of the eighth studio album, the excellent lineup that the bodybuilder frontman had put together, as a replacement for the historic one, abandoned ship citing serious moral fractures. Even his long-time companion Phil Sgrosso, guitarist and only survivor of the exodus of the original lineup, this time broke off relations with Lambesis, leaving as a testament this “Through Storms Ahead” orphaned of almost all its fathers.
As often happens lately, the release of the album was anticipated by several releases, starting with “Burden” and “The Cave We Fear to Enter” in mid-2024; “We Are the Dead” arrived after the summer, teamed with the pair of deathcore singers Tom Barber (Chelsea Grin, Darko US) and Alex Terrible (Slaughter To Prevail), and the more recent “Whitewashed Tomb” introduced the actual album.
Of all the songs we already know, “The Cave…” is the one that represents the collection the most: AILD's melodic metalcore is produced in a crystalline way, it offers a lot of spotlight to Sgrosso's guitar embroidery, it has Lambesis' roars that always convince, with the formula that the band itself helped to codify, but in this case a lot of space is also offered to the melodic sound of Ryan Neff, bassist and singer from Miss May I.
Neff's acute and hopeful refrains, reproduced in the most classic alternation with the shouted verse, are a panacea both for the effective vocal abilities of the bassist (who manages to do better even than the ex Josh Gilbert) and for the contrast with a more robust production than usual, which amplifies its thrust. It is his greatest contribution in this new chapter, and it is he who moves the bar towards similarities with Miss May I.
Ken Susi also stands out, giving a Serie A performance with his fast fingers, infusing with his former partner (drummer Nick Pierce) that granite solidity that Unearth has always had.
In addition to being a good melodic metalcore/NWOAHM album, “Through Storms Ahead” also offers unexpected variations, such as the optimism of “Permanence” and the flirtation with deathcore of the aforementioned “We Are the Dead”, making listening also more varied and lively than its predecessor, even if the inclination towards easy choruses can actually get annoying after a while.
Villainous, immoral, indefensible as a human being, terrible and intolerable as a leader: yet, once again, Tim Lambesis manages against all expectations to give life to a metalcore masterclass that will make all lovers of the genre and the group happy, or at least those who will not abandon him regardless.
Because, sooner or later, the limit is crossed for everyone.