Daylight Dies - A Frail Becoming

Daylight Dies have been absent from our lives for far too long. It’s been over four long years since last album, and one of their career bests, Lost to the Living. Too lengthy a wait, the band should have followed it up a little more swiftly to build on its towering momentum but the plague of members moving to new parts of the country meant that the originally North Carolinian based death doom band had quite a struggle in assembling its components for creating. It also means that having the five men in a room together will be a special occasion and one to be savoured; and fourth album A Frail Becoming is fully emblematic of that.

In the four years that we’ve been left waiting, Daylight Dies haven’t plotted some grand scheme to surprise us with a major stylistic shift. A Frail Becoming is still very much within the same realm as Lost to the Living and second album Dismantling Devotion. The approach still yields the same beautifully melodic death doom, peppered with dramatic passages and memorable melodies but at the same time, Daylight Dies still manage to exhale a breath of fresh air into their sound and not once does A Frail Becoming sound, or feel, tired or overdone.

Daylight Dies’ calling card has always been their ability to harness the shades of dark and light. When vocalist Nathan Ellis bellows with an earth shattering roar he’s soon met by glistening clean lead guitars that gloss beautiful over the thick juddering riffs that move at a steady pace for the most part. All the while, bassist Egan O’Rourke lays down beautifully solemn but still utterly mournful clean vocals that conjure an atmosphere of abject despair.

A Frail Becoming has once again harnessed all these equally vital components of Daylight Dies into a lush and emotive record that only they can conjure. While this fourth album may not convert anyone to the cause, it certainly shines bright in the band’s arsenal.

8/10