Oh, Sleeper
Son Of The Morning

It’s strange that in today’s metalcore scene, the groups that manage to do the best work are the most unabashedly Christian (it would be too easy to mention Underoath). And it is even stranger that a band with such a name can make a mark, if Zao managed to do it then...

The platter presents itself as a sort of concept album, in which the war between God and Lucifer, the son of the morning, the son of light, is narrated. It kicks off with a bang with the title track, and the vocal parts immediately stand out, effortlessly transitioning from scream to clean, like a back-and-forth between the Lord and Satan ("if you could see like me you'd see you haven't won anything / if you could see like me you'd see it's my grace you are breathing"). The intensity of the lyrics goes hand in hand with the structure of the songs, the numerous breakdowns are meticulously crafted and seem designed for headbanging, the Blay-Erwin duo gives their all, creating extraordinary interplays, enriched by a robust dose of aggressiveness, supported by a formidable rhythm section; an exceptional production does the rest.

Every piece is different from the previous one; there is even a short ballad, Reveries of Flight, devastating from halfway onwards, with a central outburst that merges with the calm at the beginning of the song, culminating in the last 20 seconds with an authoritarian God, really pissed off with his counterpart. Worth mentioning is the final track, The Finisher, which concludes with a powerful breakdown, with goosebump-inducing lyrics. A small flaw could be the album's duration, a little over half an hour, but in the end, who cares?

From the inevitable comparison with the already mentioned Underoath, they surprisingly come out well; unlike their Tampa colleagues, they can boast a cleaner, less chaotic sound, with more pronounced melodic and instrumental lines, and therefore greater accessibility. In fact, if I had to recommend an album to a genre newcomer, Son of the Morning might be the one chosen.

In this 2011, poor in really noteworthy metalcore releases (I only save The Hymn of a Broken Man by Times of Grace), their confirmation is awaited; the prerequisites for doing well are all there. The foundations have been laid for a band that, if they don't make any missteps, is destined to become a point of reference; online, they are almost a cult, with their Facebook fan page full of photos of fans who have tattooed the band’s symbol, the broken pentagram, on themselves, or even long phrases taken from the songs.

virtue of being accessible