aaamusic | On 20, Jun 2011

A rain-drenched sample intro leads us to the utterly bleak, pummelling sonic clout that is ‘Survived By None’, the new album by Breaking The Day. Imagine every assumption people hold about the seething aggression of metal, put them in a cement mixer, add rabid rhinoceros, and you’re there.

Going by the slow intro of ‘The Streets Will Rain With Blood Tonight’, with a creaking, desolate guitar amid the sounds of a distant storm, you’d be forgiven for thinking “doom metal”, but in actual fact, this has much more in common with hardcore black metal. Once the full band kick in, we have a sonic bombardment from every angle: vicious screams are thrown into your ears, driven home by cutting cymbals, bass from the bowels of hell, and a guitar sound somewhere on a par with the impact of a tsunami in its gigantic riffs that surge back and forth, as does the whole track with a dazing, grotesque grace. Brief hushed respite leads us to the slower, heavier ‘Leave A Blanket Of Ash On The Ground’. Blurring the lines between instruments and industrial machinery, the buzzsaw-edged distortion slices its way into the lumbering heart of a juggernaut track, and most likely into the terrified hearts of the listeners too as the bands switches metallic fury out for a blast of ominous malice. ‘And In The End What Is Love Without Loss’ is a rather fine example of how such bands can evoke tragedy from savagery, as emotion pours out through the melody that haunts the churning guitars and the percussion that resembles a rhythmic avalanche in a knife factory.
The twin pronged attack of ‘Hours’ and ‘Pretty Girls Make Graves’ are a more technical undertaking, a miniature prog odyssey via 28 Days Later. Onslaughts of vicious riffing are tempered with chilling atmospheric buildups and falls in a rollercoaster topography. The band’s musical ability is evident here, as tempo, melody and mood interweave and change at the drop of a studded wristband. And even if you’re not able to decipher the vocal style, the squalling instruments offer expressiveness aplenty, whether it is the evocative atmosphere of the former, or the trudging determined snarl of the latter.
After such a sustained attack, the desolation of ‘Nightmare Dependancies’, with its doom-styled post-apocalyptic guitar and windswept samples is a relief, the drums that follow sounding relievingly… normal, yet the buildup is fascinating. A slow bassline adds texture, as the band build tension with agonising skill, as the listener waits and waits for the floodgates of noise to open, the band playing with enough slight variations in sound to outfit several lesser bands, resulting in a track that pushes both band and listener before finally caving in under its own pressure to fall into a cavernous riff. Penultimate ‘Till Death’ is a gruesomely well-written melody, with pitchblack atmosphere, throbbing bass, and an almost demonic edge to its approach. Perhaps it’s the doom fan in me that prefers such slow-burners, but I feel this is where the band shine, as they display their writing and playing ability to a greater extent here than in the more straightforward blasts and assaults, even if they do tend to drag into the realm of self-indulgence that means the howling frenzy of black metal is almost a relief as they plunge with passion into violent storms of noise and grotesque imagery.
To finish, we have an outro that consists of a gruelling four minutes of feedback, that barely merits the hushed strains of melody that tail off the album.

‘Survived By None,’ when it gets good, is good. Doubtless, the highlights of both attack and retreat that Breaking The Day deploy with patchy aplomb are moments of dark illumination that Milton himself would most likely dream of in his imaginings of hell. But elsewhere, they get lost in self-indulgent cod-jazz metal meanderings that leave the listener cold, or else spend too long on a slightly one-track black metal inspired bombardment. If you can tolerate the shortcomings, this has appeal enough to hook and hold you, but for others, it may just come across as angst-wank. It ultimately depends on your views of the progressive/extreme end of the music spectrum as a whole.

Authors:Katie H-Halinski