Review Summary: With an impeccable barrage of grind/hardcore fury, As The Sun Sets created a monster of an album here.
What do you think of when you see a sunset? Some may admire it and look at it's beauty. Others like myself look at as the dawn of night. Or you could look at it as a rise of darkness if you will. So what happens as the sun sets? You get your head crushed with metal, that's what. And that's exactly what As The Sun Sets does on this album. As The Sun Sets played an intense fusion of hardcore, metal and grind. The band's sound on this record is rather hard to describe but could be described as an early form of deathcore given the record's release being in 1999. Generally they get classified as metalcore but given the death metal and hardcore elements present I would say it's closer to deathcore, but not at all like most of the bands with the tag today. However, no real clear distinction of genres can really describe this, as many different metal and hardcore elements are present.
The album opens up with a man who has died asking where he is. A man proceeds to tell him he was killed. The intro couldn't possibly be more suiting for an album like this. Then the band wastes no time to begin the aural assault of brutality. Each of the tracks are packed to the brim with blistering fast grind sections alternating with slower chug sections and breakdowns. However, each of the breakdowns are well placed and never disrupt the flow of the songs at all, but only add to the intense atmosphere. Alexis's vocals are mostly all high screeches with occasional death growls thrown in for good measure. The riffs on these tracks are frentic and brutal and no riff seems out of place. Each of the tracks have their own memorable riffs and are perfect for head banging.
This album proves that they were way ahead of their time as there were hardly any bands that really sounded like this at the time. It's hard to really pick a favorite track as there really isn't a weak track on the album. Anyone familiar with their later material may find this album to be quite a bit different as their later albums feature a more spastic and mathcore kind of sound. I personally feel this album to be by far their best as it is much more focused on catchy riffs and features and overall heavier sound and the atomsphere here is impeccable. I would strongly urge anyone into grind, deathcore, hardcore, or any kind of heavy music to give this album a spin. This is truly an underrated listen.
