As I Lay Dying: Through Storms Ahead | Let The Storm Pass
(Napalm Recors – Icarus 2024)
It had been a long time since I had an As I Lay Dying album in my hands. I still remember that, at the time, we were the first Argentinean media that did an interview with them on the occasion of the release of their second album, “Frail Words Collapse”, with which they made themselves known to the world (they had previously released their first album independently). Nostalgia aside, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since that moment, and we are not going to go into the details that haunted their leader Tim Lambesis in the last years. If anyone can judge, it is not human.
What we can say is that the band of Tim Lambesis, is presented with new members, after a vain attempt to refloat the classic and old formation. This new version of As I Lay Dying has a lot to say, and does so through a new album that attempts to be a facelift to their old-school Metalcore.
In “Through Storms Ahead”, As I Lay Dying presents us with an intro and 10 new tracks with a renewed aesthetic but trying to return to the forefront. A much more overloaded sound with the classic riffs and guitar picking, added to the mix between guttural and clean vocals does not say much more than what we already know about the band, but highlighting that here we notice a much more emphatic Lambesis behind the microphone. This is how “A Broken Reflection” opens, a classic blast that we have become accustomed to. In “Burden” we have something much more modern, if I may say so, and with “We Are The Dead” they take off with a song much closer to Florida Death Metal. Variety, as you will see, is not lacking, and that is noticeable for example in a song like “Whitewashed Tomb”, a piece with an air of ballad (which has nothing melodic eh), but that may well stand as one of the most interesting songs on this album.
The rest of the album doesn’t tell us much more, although we can rescue “Strength To Survive” or the interesting “The Cave We Fear To Enter”, a ballad taken to a Metalcore level in a masterful way. The album closes with “Taken From Nothing”, rounding off a correct work for As I Lay Dying. Correct because the band does not move from the axis where it has always moved, but neither can it be said that “Through Storms Ahead” is a big gamble or risk. The band chooses to stick to their own thing, and that’s fine.
What perhaps arouses more curiosity are the lyrics of the songs on “Through Storms Ahead”; without a doubt, they are personal lyrics, reflective, in many cases melancholic. Are there references to what Lambesis has gone through? Maybe, but we are not going to be detectives either. What we can say is that they are interesting. Thoughts about loneliness, problems, discrimination, etc. are a constant.
The final sound of this work is correct, according to the times, without being outstanding. It is evident that a lot of emphasis was put on the mix between the interesting sound of the drums and the classic riffs/guitars, plus a great job with the vocals. As the inner envelope has no recording data for this album, it is impossible for us to know where it was recorded, who did the mixing, etc. By the way, there is no information about the current line-up of the band either, just an internal photo. The cover doesn’t tell us much, it’s a bit rushed, so the graphic aspect subtracts some points. Thumbs down.
“Through Storms Ahead” clearly doesn’t seem to be As I Lay Dying’s best album, and it clearly doesn’t have the pretension to be either. I think it is a good attempt to leave the storms behind and get back on track in the scene, and As I Lay Dying achieves it with a work that without being brilliant, at least honors its history.
To celebrate and be thankful that this work was not only released on compact disc but also on vinyl, so that the lovers of the physical format (like us of course), we are in luck. To purchase this album, in the case of Argentina, it is available at https://icarusmusicstore.com or elsewhere on the planet through https://napalmrecords.com.
