Review Summary: Both accessible and heavy because of a great entwinement of crushing vocals and perfect melody.
Killswitch engage is a metalcore rock hybrid hailing from Westfield, Massachusetts. Even prior to this LP Killswitch Engage had become the radio pop-stars/poster boys of metalcore with the release of The End Of Heartache. As Daylight Dies continues in The End Of Heartaches vein. That means more mellow guitar riffs with soaring vocals presented by Killswitch Engages second vocalist, Howard Jones, paired by fairly decent drumming and covering song topics involving broken hearts and the death of love.
That isn't to say nothing has changed. The differences are pretty minimal but I think it was all a small step up from their previous effort-Howard's croons soar just a bit more and are more hefty with emotion, evident strongly on tracks like arms of sorrow and during the chorus of reject yourself. During the break in arms of sorrow every instrument halts and time stills as a croon hefty with emotion soars with utmost majesty, and in reject yourself its just uplifting, especially after rapid riffage and some fairly thrashing drums.
So what about the radio song off the album, the one that was spammed across the airwaves for awhile, is it worthy of its praise? This song in case you're wondering is My Curse. This is probably the greatest example of the sharp contrasts in head banging power and elegance in As Daylight Dies- the verses are entwined with both melody and harsh screams, the interlude between verse and chorus is pounding growls and chugging guitar, and the chorus soars as Howard constantly proves hes great at doing. It's definetly worthy of the radio praise, in fact this whole album is. However with all its greatness their is at least one flaw.
Repetition.
The tracks are distinguished but they're formulaic. The verses are harsh and contain catchy guitars, their is almost always some type of bridge which connects the verses to a much more accesible catchy chorus where the vocals become really sweet and the guitar and drums take their volume and speed down two notches. The repetition isn't even bothersome upon the first listen, but it does kill some of the lasting appeal. If Killswitch Engage ever find a way to fix this vital flaw in their music, they may very well have a perfect album.
