All Shall Perish as always been fucking killer in my book. The Price of Existence was totally gnarly, and it accompanied many times while riding the L into work. Honestly, is there anything better than starting your morning off to blistering metal? Besides morning sex, the answer is no. Needless to say, when I got my grubby little hands on ASP's latest release, Awaken the Dreamers, I was pretty stoked. And while I don't think this album really pushes the band into any extremely new territory, it's still pretty solid and has some differences than past releases.
I'm not going to go through the album track by track, but there were some specific songs worth mentioning. The first track, entitled "When Life Meant More," ripped my face off right from the start. Seriously, I have no face anymore. It's gone. Although, in all honesty, I look much more pleasing to ladies now. So not only did I get a fuckshark jam, I also got more dates as well. Thanks, dudes! "Black Gold Reign" kind of stood out to also, because halfway through this bad mammajamma, there are some ridiculous Iron Maidenesque vocals that just made me smile. Nive homage guys. Toward the middle of album, however, some of the tracks are pretty questionable. They start to slow down and have more of a ballad feel to them. These songs include the title track and "Memories of a Glass Sancyuary," and they should have been left off the record. To be perfectly frank, these songs blow and are a disruption in relation to the rest of the release.
But don't fret, fellow readers. The band gets back on track after those shithole songs. From here on out, things return to just plain punishing, as we all would expect. The range of vocals that "Eddie" Hermida gives is more than impressive, and he does switches up styles a lot more on this release than those in the past. There are also a lot more backing vocals laid over each other, which gives a good amount of depth. As usual, the guitars slay and the drumwork is relentless.
Overall, this is a pretty good release. It may not be "So Sick" worthy, but it's still worth getting. Pop this baby in and rage, you rat bastards!
Performing "Never Again" live. Just skip the stupid "Mundane" bullshit at the beginning.
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