25 Days Of Metal 2012: #23 As I Lay Dying – Awakened

December 3rd, 2012

Jordan Munson

Rather than counting down the days until we can celebrate Christmas, this year we’re bringing your a series of metal posts will be celebrating the countdown until we don’t have to be inundated with Christmas music and decorations everywhere. To coincide with this countdown We’ll be posting our top 25 metal (and metal-ish) albums of 2012. 25 days of hell, 25 rad metal albums to make up for it.

Out of all the metalcore acts born in the late 90s and early 2000s, not many have stayed as consistently solid or successful as As I Lay Dying has and Awakened doesn’t change that. At this point As I Lay Dying have manufactured a rather signature sound, fronted by Tim Lambesis’ vocals alongside Nick Sgrosso and Nick Hipa’s guitar attack on top of the tight foundation setup by Josh Gilbert (bass) and Jordan Mancino (drums), Employing the good cop/bad cop vocals on just about every song on the album, AILD strike a fantastic balance between being super catchy and making you want to mosh someone’s face off. Peaking at number 11 on the Billboard 200, Awakened is actually only AILD’s third highest charting album, an incredibly respectable track record for a modern metal band. While many poeople criticize AILD for being too radio-friendly, writing catchy songs is what got them here and it doesn’t look like they’re about to change it. I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t mind.