Artist: Sleeping Giant
Release: 2011
Runtime: 40:25
Rating: 3/5
If you can mix the aggression of modern metalcore with odes to Jesus Christ and still feel fine when that kind of music is spinning in your CD player, then you’ve taken a big step toward warming up to Sleeping Giant. The band is no stranger to the scene and has done quite a few tours with fellow countrymen For Today, and this year they have a successful “Scream The Prayer” tour with Norma Jean behind them.
The third studio album from these American “white metalcore guys” is packed with simple riffs and simple one-dimensional rhythms that lean on a one-dimensional use of the double kick, and into all of that they’ve of course tossed rhythmic “breakdowns”, short pauses where riffs and rhythms lock in together. Guitar solos are nowhere to be found. So very, very, very trivial and predictable playing. In that respect, nothing new from the band.
On the production side, the band has taken a decisive step forward and sounds mature, red-hot, down-to-earth and aggressive all over, just as the genre demands. The riffs come across as predatory in the mix and form a more than pleasing, deep smear of a massive wall in the background of the sonic picture. With no transitional harmonies, the delivery of the verses is really the only element that stirs up the monotony of the riff structures, as well as the rhythms of the album’s songs. And Thom Green on vocals shines at unleashing unexpected fury and getting religious messages across effectively. In this department he sounds convincing and rock-solid throughout, backing something he clearly believes in with all his heart. And that quality lifts the album above the average metalcore release.
The boundless, at times downright fanatical preaching in dedication to Jesus Christ is a trick that steers the listener’s focus away from the simple template of song arrangements with their melodic stinginess and the repetitive laying down of aggressively extreme screaming. Plenty of metalcore bands are simply better schooled instrumentally than Sleeping Giant, and if nothing else they show far more instrumental wit and daring, I’d even say creative insight.
The new album also leans more on clean melodic vocals than the previous two, which manages to add a bit of variety to the one-dimensional “riff chopping” across the record. At times they even take absolute priority, like in the closer Enthroned, in the second track Dead Man Walking, and in the middle of the album in Tithemi. Inviting Emmure singer Frankie Palmieri to guest on Eyes Wide Open came in handy for shaking up the songs, and the extreme vocal duet with Green hits the desired effect. Which brings us back to the fact that the band livens up its songs by livening up the vocal structures, while the instrumentation stays pushed into the background.
The band actually deserves congratulations for their guts. At a time when many people are sick of watching the filth that God’s middlemen on Earth are caught up in, they come across as unbelievably dogged in their mission. On top of that, they’ve launched onto the scene an album that is even tighter sonically, taking their approach, a predictable but predatory, red-hot version of metalcore, to a point of even clearer and more recognizable definition. But the fact that can really sting someone lies elsewhere in Sleeping Giant’s case. The US just loves these, sadly misguided, “preachers” among its citizens, since they live in a dead end and can be handled with the little finger of the left hand. And for those of you who don’t fret about searching for the dirty and the honest in this world and are comfortable with conformism, or have extremely thick skin, bridging the band’s hollow messaging won’t be much of an obstacle!
Lineup
Tommy Green – vocals
Eric Gregson – guitar
Geoff Brouillette – guitar
J.R. Bermuda – bass
Matthew Weir – drums
Production
Eric Gregson
Tracklist
1. Throne Room Militance (1:42)
2. Dead Men Walking (4:20)
3. Eyes Wide Open (2:44)
4. The Cross Is Suicide (4:35)
5. Icxc (2:33)
6. Tithemi (3:56)
7. Tongues Of Fire (3:16)
8. Jehova Shalom (2:45)
9. The Unnamable Name (3:29)
10. Morning Star (4:52)
11. Enthroned (6:40)
