Review Summary: An honest attempt at originality ultimately ruined by immature songwriting.
Genre: hardcore/metalcore
Since their inception, Sleeping Giant really had nothing in the way of originality to offer to the hardcore scene. Their debut album,
Dread Champions of the Last Days seldom strayed from the conventional “riff-breakdown-riff-breakdown” formula common among today’s metal bands. The few moments of inspiration were quickly drowned out by senseless chugging and monotonous vocals.
Sons of Thunder represents a change. With their second album, the members of Sleeping Giant are clearly trying to distance themselves from today’s uninventive hardcore scene and create something new. While this is a step in the right direction, the band still has a lot of ground to cover.
Sons of Thunder in general is a shift from the aggressive style of the
Dread Champions to a more melodic, emotional sound. The album begins with two fast paced, double-bass pounding songs: “Gang Signs” and “No One leaves this Room Sick”. These two songs are very similar to the songs on
Dread Champions and are easily the two of the best songs on the album. The heavy guitar riffs, incessant double bass, and Thom’s screaming of “Fight Me” on “No one leaves this room sick” create a level of aggression unmatched by the rest of the album. And then comes the third song: “Sons of Thunder”. This is the first time you here the more melodic, emotional sound I was referring to. “Sons of Thunder” starts slowly with one guitar playing a slow riff and steadily builds until it reaches its climax. The problem with this song is that it is six minutes long. It takes way too long to build and all the while repeats the same simple guitar parts over and over again. There is just not enough material for “Sons of Thunder” to be such a long song. It drags you through five minutes of boring instrumental work then leads you to a slow paced, predictable climax.
Ironically (or maybe not), the title track is a perfect picture of what is wrong with this album as a whole. The emotional songwriting approach featured on about half of the songs in this album ends up being just a bunch of slow, uninteresting instrumental parts repeated over and over again. One of the songs, “I’ve Seen”, does actually come to a pretty interesting climax (after the obligatory five minutes of the same riff), but rather than adding an appropriate new part for a conclusion, the song just fades out. “I’ve Seen” really showcases Sleeping Giant’s immature songwriting ability. All of the songs that give
Sons of Thunder its uniqueness are poorly developed and frankly quite boring. The aggressive but unoriginal other half of the songs are for the most part interesting and well written. This is the mark of a young band trying to find their own unique sound.
Sons of Thunder by no means a solid release, but it is a step in the right direction. Sleeping Giant has a lot of potential, but it will probably take a few failed albums for them to reach it.
