Jesse SD
05/08/08, 07:11 PM
Soul Embraced - Dead Alive
Release Date: April 29, 2008
Record Label: Solid State Records
A lot has happened in the Christian heavy music scene since Soul Embraced’s last album Immune was released in 2003. In the course of five years, the overall popularity of death and black metal acts has faded, to be replaced by metalcore, hardcore, and post-hardcore/screamo bands. This trend is nowhere more evident than in the band roster for Solid State Records, a subdivision of Tooth & Nail Records and arguably the most well-known Christian heavy music label around. Once toting bands such as Extol and Living Sacrifice, the label now sports the likes of Underoath and Norma Jean. Soul Embraced’s newest release, Dead Alive, serves as both an introduction to fans who missed the metal frenzy of the early 2000s and a reminder to those who haven’t heard good metal in a long time of how energizing good death metal can be.
The album kicks off with “To End It All,” a track that masterfully builds from tolling bells and an ominous acoustic guitar riff to a chugging electric guitar riff and vocalist Chad Moore’s guttural rasping. Like most death and black metal bands, Soul Embraced include the themes of death and chaos in their music, only with a twist. Unlike the expected images of the occult and masochism, Soul Embraced’s lyrics include the band members’ Christian beliefs through pondering death as a facet of their relationship with God, as witnessed when Moore rasps, “Will this be the day I end it all, end it all? / My hate for life around my neck / I want to live but I’ve forgotten how / My God, is it too late?” in the opening track.
While the first two tracks are solid, the album doesn’t hit its stride until “Curtain of Deceit.” The tense opening guitar riff coupled with quick hi-hat tapping is perfectly executed, and sounds like the music that would complement a chase scene in a movie. After this track, though, the album takes a bit of a dip, and the next four tracks (while not bad by any means) start to run together, until the dual onslaught of guitarists Rocky Gray and Devin Castle hit their shredding climax in “Into Darkness,” which provides a necessary break in the tedium.
Even though instrumental tracks are becoming overdone and commonplace in metal and hardcore albums, “In Memory,” the twelfth track on the album, works perfectly. The track is not too long (ending right around the three-minute mark) and the string section matches the major-scaled acoustic guitar playing beautifully, and lays an incredible foundation for epic closer and title track “Dead Alive.”
The biggest problem with the album is the songwriting. While not terrible, the lyrics are typically very simplistic and often overly trite, and verses such as, “All this hate that I’ve carried / The hurt that I’ve felt, that I buried inside,” from “Into Darkness” and “My honesty, my cruelty, I am my worst enemy / The darkness within me, a disgusting view to see,” from “The Devil’s Reflection” seem strangely reminiscent of the poor song-writing present in the nu-metal genre. Another small problem with the album arises when the band tries to deliver sung vocals (See “Crawl” and “Judas I’ve Become”), which sound forced and very similar to the vocals of bands like Mudvayne and Sevendust.
As a whole, this album works and provides listeners with forty-five minutes of refreshing and invigorating metal.
Extol, Nile, Living Sacrifice, Black Dahlia Murder
myspace.com/soulembraced (http://www.myspace.com/soulembraced)
Release Date: April 29, 2008
Record Label: Solid State Records
A lot has happened in the Christian heavy music scene since Soul Embraced’s last album Immune was released in 2003. In the course of five years, the overall popularity of death and black metal acts has faded, to be replaced by metalcore, hardcore, and post-hardcore/screamo bands. This trend is nowhere more evident than in the band roster for Solid State Records, a subdivision of Tooth & Nail Records and arguably the most well-known Christian heavy music label around. Once toting bands such as Extol and Living Sacrifice, the label now sports the likes of Underoath and Norma Jean. Soul Embraced’s newest release, Dead Alive, serves as both an introduction to fans who missed the metal frenzy of the early 2000s and a reminder to those who haven’t heard good metal in a long time of how energizing good death metal can be.
The album kicks off with “To End It All,” a track that masterfully builds from tolling bells and an ominous acoustic guitar riff to a chugging electric guitar riff and vocalist Chad Moore’s guttural rasping. Like most death and black metal bands, Soul Embraced include the themes of death and chaos in their music, only with a twist. Unlike the expected images of the occult and masochism, Soul Embraced’s lyrics include the band members’ Christian beliefs through pondering death as a facet of their relationship with God, as witnessed when Moore rasps, “Will this be the day I end it all, end it all? / My hate for life around my neck / I want to live but I’ve forgotten how / My God, is it too late?” in the opening track.
While the first two tracks are solid, the album doesn’t hit its stride until “Curtain of Deceit.” The tense opening guitar riff coupled with quick hi-hat tapping is perfectly executed, and sounds like the music that would complement a chase scene in a movie. After this track, though, the album takes a bit of a dip, and the next four tracks (while not bad by any means) start to run together, until the dual onslaught of guitarists Rocky Gray and Devin Castle hit their shredding climax in “Into Darkness,” which provides a necessary break in the tedium.
Even though instrumental tracks are becoming overdone and commonplace in metal and hardcore albums, “In Memory,” the twelfth track on the album, works perfectly. The track is not too long (ending right around the three-minute mark) and the string section matches the major-scaled acoustic guitar playing beautifully, and lays an incredible foundation for epic closer and title track “Dead Alive.”
The biggest problem with the album is the songwriting. While not terrible, the lyrics are typically very simplistic and often overly trite, and verses such as, “All this hate that I’ve carried / The hurt that I’ve felt, that I buried inside,” from “Into Darkness” and “My honesty, my cruelty, I am my worst enemy / The darkness within me, a disgusting view to see,” from “The Devil’s Reflection” seem strangely reminiscent of the poor song-writing present in the nu-metal genre. Another small problem with the album arises when the band tries to deliver sung vocals (See “Crawl” and “Judas I’ve Become”), which sound forced and very similar to the vocals of bands like Mudvayne and Sevendust.
As a whole, this album works and provides listeners with forty-five minutes of refreshing and invigorating metal.
Extol, Nile, Living Sacrifice, Black Dahlia Murder
myspace.com/soulembraced (http://www.myspace.com/soulembraced)