  
These metalcore heroes stole my heard with An
Ocean Between Us, then follow up The Powerless
Rise pushed that love into and obsession, if this
album is even close to matching the quality of
the previous 2 records then I’m scared what’s
actually going to happen to me. With the difference
between each of their albums being so extreme
it’s hard to predict what kind of album
they’ll have chose to produce; Frail Words
Collapse was purely heavy, Shadows are Security
tries to keep that style but add melodic vocals
and chorus pieces in, An Ocean Between Us had
its drop dead heavy moments but was mostly full
off melody and cleaner tones and then came The
Powerless Rise which was technical and heavy for
the most part with melodic moments carefully placed
at opportune moments.
The first few tracks are hard to place, I can
feel a variation at work, “Cauterize”
open’s us up in a bit of a messy way - much
like “Beyond Our Suffering” did with
The Powerless Rise – and I found myself
initially a bit put off by it until I gave it
a fair few spins before I started to find it to
have a very technical structure and in fact captures
much of what As I Lay Dying is all about right
at the source; but then “A Greater Foundation”
has the hard tones yet layered with the cleaner
style , with verses that blow your face off when
slotted alongside those drastically slower choruses,
strangely though it really fits. “Wasted
Words” is like the personification of what
a cross between the previous 2 albums just is;
there are sinister distorted tones alongside eerie
melodies which are the 2 best parts of the last
couple albums.
I’m just glad they’ve kept those breakneck
style drum lines and breakdowns, not a touch on
“Anodyne Sea” from the last album
because that was absolute insanity but songs like
“Whispering Silence” with its breakdown
outro and “Overcome” come close. “Defender”
and “No Lungs To Breathe” vocal and
lyric wise are the best as they are really catchy
and pull at your stomach with the atmospheric
tones, so does “My Only Home”. On
the whole then this record adds another 11 songs
of diverse material to their back catalogue, as
a standalone CD it’s really strong and I’ve
fell in love with it, it’s not as aggressive
as The Powerless Rise nor as atmospheric as An
Ocean Between Us but there’s an even balance
with a few more twists and turns to make it a
massive release that really encompasses who As
I Lay Dying are as a band and what they are all
about
4.5/5
Review by James Webb
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