Daysend - Severance
by  Joannie Foney

Five Star: A look at albums that are so good that they impress even the most cynical of critics. Very few albums are superior enough to obtain a five star rating but occasionally a band slips through the river of mediocrity that is the modern music industry and they produce an album that restores our faith in the future of rock! This series is a look at such albums. 

I'm such a fan of originality in music that I'm not easily impressed. Given that, I never thought I'd hear any 5 star worthy bands. Daysend is an Aussie import that has come out of the chute screaming, so to speak, with a stunning debut album that raises the bar on the the metal scene.

Severance will have you wondering how a band that is a little over one year old could release such a solid, musically excellent album. Clearly this isn't the norm. New bands are supposed to fumble around for a least an album or two before they discover how to play their instruments better, how to write catchy songs, and other helpful skills that will carry them through their time of employment in the metal- worker industry. Figuring out how to embed your band in the volatile psyches of metalheads is a task many fail miserably at, sometimes even after an entire career. Not many groups achieve this on their very first album, placing Daysend in fairly exclusive company.  
 
Daysend demonstrates on this album, which originally sold out within weeks, that they possess skills, originality, and a comfort with each other & the material that some, more experienced bands, lack. All of the members have lengthy resumes with other Aussie bands like Deadspawn, Psi-Kore & Automation which may account for the mature sound they encapsulate on Severance.  If some mad musical scientist in a lab could isolate & combine the very best elements of every modern metal & thrash band that was truly great, from the time when they were at their peak, in such a way that the end product didn't end up sounding like a ridiculous, cover band-esque, unoriginal, mish mashy rip off of competing & clashing sounds, that's kind of what you'd have in Daysend. This is a CD that gets better every time it's listened to.         
 
The ride you're in for musically on this CD is so hard to describe. Reviews of CD's that are impossibly great will always be but a pale attempt to unsuccessfully convey their sound. Since you can't possibly know how incredible this album is unless you hear them, a trip to their website to purchase a copy of this CD is advisable. The vocals are clean, without sacrificing intensity. The guitars are fast & heavy, never missing a note, always busily laying down the perfect background for every song, with interesting solos & leads & original sounding fills. The drummer & bassist handle their roles admirably, finding the perfect compromise between overbearingly over the top & too nonexistent to be noticed. There is nothing to criticize musically or lyrically in this CD, ho hum, what a boring review, fortunately the CD is anything but. 

The juxtaposition of the high pitched guitar and the growling so low vocals on "Prism of You" makes quite an intriguing sound different than what's currently available on the metal front. "Sibling" is a heavy, hauntingly eerie roller coaster of a tune full of musical twists & turns that keeps you hanging on tight. The first track, "Born is the Enemy", experiments around with weird vocal effects, showing off in the process an impressive vocal range embracing true singing ability as well as the ubiquitous power screaming that bands of this genre have to include in their repertoire, again without sacrificing clarity. If this were radio friendly filler, "Countdown" and "The Blood of Angels" might be the smash hit singles. I could rhapsodize on & on about every song on this album, an impossible task would be selecting one track out of the 11 to have as a favorite, all the songs are so strong. I'd be impressed with this release even if the band was much older & had many albums released in their past. The fact that they managed to pull this off their very first time makes it worth 5 stars in my mind.
 

Visit the band's homepage to learn more

Listen to Samples and Purchase this CD online
 
 

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