The Summary Judgment Review:
Title: Severance
Artist: Daysend
Label: Metal Blade Records
Release Date: 10/19/04

Rating: 3 Skulls
  • Official Website for this Artist
  • Discuss on the Metal Judgment Web Board
  • Submit/Read Reader Reviews of this Album

    • Reviewed by Lugubrious (9/7/06):
    When the subdued and the heavy combine, a beautiful monster is often created. A whole scene called melodic death was created with this idea in mind. Is this metal? Without a doubt. Metal can be catchy, lustful, and above all, it can work. What Daysend aims for is creating songs that are something you can remember. This is not to say the goal is commercial success, but instead to leave an imprint on your mind.

    Like others before them, Daysend utilize rough and clean vocals in a manner that is chorus based. Yes, this is something you can sing along to, or bang your head if that is what pleases you. They cross the biggest barrier simply by having clean male vocals that are anything but annoying. While the voice is not the delicate velvet of say Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth, they are more than tolerable. This is the formula that metalcore has tried to embrace, without quite the same amount of success. The aforementioned bands forgot one key element, the metal.

    One problem exists though. While the intentions are obvious, they simply do not reach the lofty goal of creating an instant classic. This could possibly be blamed on the young age of the band, or maybe they are just incapable of creating songs that are instant favorites as others do with such ease. While the songs are good, they simply are not great, and in a style of music that has had many great artists, Daysend simply do not measure up. A large part of this is they are simply too jumpy, going from chorus to verse back to the chorus before you can even get into the sections between. The band is immensely talented, but it’s time to try a different bait, and maybe next time they will get a bite. It will be interesting to see how this band grows as songwriters. With regret I must say this could be much better. In short, good but not great.
    3 out of 5

    [- Metal Judgment Home -]    [- Email Metal Judgment -]
    ©2006 Metal Judgment. All rights reserved.