Review Summary: An admirable lease on life.
What is with old staples of the CCM rock genre putting their best foot forward in 2022, anyway? I recently reviewed Skillet's latest album
Dominion and came away impressed with how much growth they showed from the straight-to-radio schlock I had grown to expect. I'll admit that I was not at all expecting Seventh Day Slumber to drop the best of their 26-year-and-counting career just two weeks after.
Seventeen years out from releases like the forgettable worship number "Oceans From The Rain" and the antifreeze-sweet "Caroline," both of which typified the criminally label-driven talent of Seventh Day Slumber, it almost becomes difficult to recognize this latest independent release as coming from the same band.
Death By Admiration is hard, fast, and heavy riff rock, full send. To that end, it becomes almost immune to critique - a briskly-paced ten-track push-forward endeavor that never slows down long enough to think about being anything other than what it is. It's refreshing, then, that the foot-tapping, head-banging rock and roll on offer here is as sweet as it gets, despite the fact that nine of the ten tracks tend to run together a bit.
That's not to say that there are no great moments to be found here. The screams at the end of the opening title track certainly make a statement, as does the excellent nu-metal rapping delivered by label-mates Relent in "Snake Mouth." "Fatal Love" makes clever use of dissonance and unusual guitar harmonies in its breakdowns. "Halos" offsets its screams with some much-needed ambience and atmosphere, and "Light The Way" is a relentless assault of gratuitous uptempo pentatonic riffage in the best way possible.
The latter half, however, delivers the cut gem of this collection in the form of "Landmines," which manages to dial up the heaviness with downtuned guitars and slick melodic hooks, capped off with an exquisitely-executed guitar solo. The closing number "Can't Say Sorry Enough" certainly doesn't disappoint either - while it's predictably an acoustic guitar-led ballad, Seventh Day Slumber managed to resist the temptation to ramp up the volume and instead backed it up with nothing more than shakers, soft strings, and - surprisingly - a mandolin. It's a fantastic way to end an album like this.
Lyrically, Seventh Day Slumber seems to have found a comfortable place communicating their faith and how it connects with the difficulties of life and of relationships without coming across as forced and preachy or else reserved and avoidant. Leaving the mid-2000s youth-oriented CCM culture wisely in the mid-2000s has left a group of guys acting like adults who are very comfortable with their message that faith in Christ can have a profound effect on our worldview and our relationships but leave the prerequisite sermonizing behind. The air of authenticity devoid of soapboxing is something sorely lacking in the genre, and on an album that where the lyrics really only needed to be serviceable, Seventh Day Slumber went with something that actually elevates the entire package.
Death by Admiration is difficult to find fault with. If it tried to do anything more than what it does, I might judge it on the merits on what it tried, but it doesn't. I get it - that might be enough to steer a few away from this one. But while every movement on this album has been calculated and calibrated, it can't help but hit the "fun" mark with almost zero spread. Twenty-six years and counting sees SDS hitting a new stride and sounding more energetic, youthful, and full of life than ever. Admirable, indeed.
