Sleep Serapis Sleep
The Dark Awakening
6.7
It doesn’t take a genius to look at the band's moniker to figure out what style of music this; sturdy modern Christian metalcore--and while the band do nothing wrong on this self released debut album, it’s a pretty standard second tier effort that fits in line with the likes of Saving Grace, Destroy the Runner, and the plethora of solid but similar sounding Solid State/Facedown Records bands that like As I Lay Dying.
Though forcing some death metal into their music by way of the dual growled/screamed vocals and some blast beats, for the most part, this is still pure slightly heavier than average modern metalcore with dueling European guitars, stern breakdowns and a high energy level throughout. While the bulk of the album is high octane riffs and plenty of telegraphed breakdowns scatterd with intermittent solos, Sleep Serapis Sleep does avoid the usual Christian metal pitfalls of clean corny hymnals or graceful acoustic interludes (though “Slight of Hand” starts with a very short acoustic intro). All eight tracks on The Dark Awakening rage pretty hard and with a well produced and played grasp of the genre that should garner some label interest form the usual suspects (Facedown/Solid State/ Bombworks, etc), even if the trend seem to be rather saturated.
There’s also a slight Maylene/Remove the Veil, Southern Rock-ish element that creeps in here and there for “Answers Unquestioned”, “Placating the Angry Mob,” and "Destiny Is Met on the Path That Betrays It." There’s nothing on The Dark Awakening I haven’t heard before thousands of times, but tracks like “Son, Death is Beauty in Your Eyes”, “Mercy” and the rather enjoyable "Explaining Sight to the Blind”, certainly are not the worst examples of the genre I have heard, and for a self releases effort, compare favorably to some of their label released peers.
