The Dying Daylights

The CD starts with a crappy 20 second intro, and then comes the guitar, which sounds pretty ok, while nothing really special. You’ll pretty much notice, that the band is giving the bass much attention by letting the other instruments tone down a little, so you’ll only hear, or concentrate, on the bass riff. The bass riffs’ are in general good on the album, but it’s sort of a one-trick thing, as they use it several times on different songs. Teemu does a decent job, but it’s only the concentration on the bass that makes it stand out a little.

JP’s singing is powerful, and his clean voice really carry on well. His register isn’t very wide, but his voice still fits the music pretty much perfectly. In the fourth track, “In Brief War”, his voice sounds darker in the beginning, which adds a nice flavour an otherwise pretty boring track.

Pasi and Jasse does a good job on the guitars, and there’s many good solos on the album, remarkably on “Death Can Dance”, which also may be one of the best tracks. On some tracks, JP continues singing over the solos, which, for me, works well. I’m not much of a solo-lover anyway, so it’s nice that you don’t have to concentrate solely on the solo.

Ah, the drums. I would have preferred that they would have been a little louder, now they kind of drown in the background. One hardly notices them at all. Then of course I’m not a drummer, and I’ve always said that a guitarist listens to the guitars, a drummer to the drums etc. There’s nothing to really go wow over here, concerning the drums. They’re very mediocre, very basic.

The boringness of the tracks is a really big problem here. It’s, if not difficult, at least somewhat hard to tell the tracks from each other, and while they’re mostly catchy, there’s not a single one that you’d want to hear again after that first spin. All songs sound pretty much the same. And it certainly doesn’t help that JP’s singing is likewise the same on almost every track. The song structures are all the same on every song, which doesn’t help a bit. No surprises there. The tracks are pretty short, average would be around 3:30. A good thing they are, too. Any longer, and they’d fail to maintain the listeners already failing interest.

Lyrically, the band isn’t very good, the text is easily understandable english, which of course is good, but it’s a tad too simple. There’s nothing to grasp at, nothing that really makes you offer the lyrics another thought. The lyrics are basically about despair, which brings my thoughts to Sentenced. While they doesn’t play same kind of music, it’s pretty amazing how alike they still sound. Also, there’s no real hooks in the songs.

There’s no atmosphere to talk about on the album. Sure, there’s some really nice melodies, as in “Unbreak, Unchain”, but it’s just not enough. It’s just a couple of songs loosely hanging together. While they all deals with the same subjects, they have no continuity, which I find quite boring. It’s like they have no story to tell.

Now, the artwork is pretty nice, with a house in the background and some kind of frail ghost. Have no idea what it has to do with the lyrical theme’s though. Also, the lyrics are all found in the booklet, even to the bonustracks, which is ever so nice, and there’s a picture of every band member but sadly no additional information is available.

Ok, so if you still are planning to check this album out, at least buy the digipack version with the bonustracks, since the second best track of the album is “Built for My Ghosts”. It starts differently (no shitty intro here, like in the first track, “Failed”, and in the fourth, “In Brief War”), the lyrics are maybe the most interesting on the album and overall it’s a well-written song. I have no clue whatsoever, why this wasn’t on the album in the first place, being one of the strongest tracks.

A desperat attempt to make a catchy album has failed, and the outcome is this: a boring, very mediocre album. If you’re a fan of the genre, you might enjoy it, but if you’re not, stay away. Nothing to see here.

Charon's "The Dying Daylights" joins the ranks of perfect Gothic Metal albums with the likes of Poisonblack's "Escapexstacy" and Sentenced's "Crimson." If you already like Charon, this album is a must have! Do not hesitate to buy this!! If you're new to them or even the Gothic Metal genre, this is an excellent album to sample and I wouldn't hesitate even to recommend it to anyone just getting into metal as the songs are concise, and very accessable rather than for merely those with an acquired taste for the quirks of Gothic Metal.

There is no lingering outro or tedious intro, no unnecessary interlude, no poor vocal or tempo changes; no gloomy slow-tempo piece. There is nothing unexpected nor anything unwanted. This is all very tight mid-tempo Metal, and despite it's great production, it certainly isn't the moody, atmospheric, dark kind of music you may expect of Gothic Metal. If anything, this album has an up-beat head-nodding sing-along feel to it despite the depressing heartfelt lyrics. Every song has great riffs (both rhythm and lead), the singing is as great as ever (not to mention 4 of the songs beautifully feature duet vocals), and every chorus is so memorable. It's not often you'll hear so many wholly perfect songs on one album.

My continued favourite songs on this album are "In Brief War" and "Every Failure," which I would say are the best songs off any of their albums.

Sadly their follow up album "Songs For The Sinners" sounded like nothing more than b-sides from "The Dying Daylights." But with how impressive "The Dying Daylights" is, I'm sure they still have it in them to put out another classic Gothic Metal album. Don't miss out on this.