Charon
The Dying Daylights
8.3
Let’s clear one thing up right away: Charon is not metal, so all those denizens of the land of Brutalia can save themselves two minutes of reading. Even during their heaviest moments, they’re much closer to hard rock than anything else. Charon play that delicious style of Finnish rock that is generally associated with Sentenced and H.I.M. Take equal parts of power-chord laden rhythms and melodic leads, add a scoop of solos, throw in a dash of exceptional vocals, and then finally drizzle a small dose of melancholy over the mix. Over the years, they’ve been accused of riding on H.I.M.’s coattails, but I find this ludicrous because The Dying Daylights, and their past two albums slay anything I’ve heard from H.I.M.. But that’s just a personal opinion, of course. What sets Charon apart from the Finnish goth-rock pack are the outstanding vocals of J-P Leppaluoto (also the voice of Poisonblack). I can’t quite pinpoint why, but the quasi-deep timber of his voice cuts through me like a hot knife through butter. With the two albums he’s performed on this year, he’s rapidly becoming my favorite clean voice. Even better is when they occasionally back his choruses with the angelic voice of Jenny Heinonen. Main songwriter Pasi Sipila handles the lead guitar, and while the rhythms (that I think he writes) can be a bit on the simple side, his leads and solos are quite excellent. The production job of Finnvox studios is exemplary for the music they play. This being rock music, the verse sections can be somewhat hit-or-miss, but their choruses are among the best in the business. Don’t expect wildly progressive song structures or anything like that here, just a lot of catchy bits that drill their way into your subconscious. When they do decide to just rock out, the results sometimes sound like a Lullacry song, such as in the single “In Trust of No One”, or like the aggressive opener “Failure”. But just as quickly, they turn around and deliver a morose number like “Unbreak, Unchain” or “If”. Most of the time they just combine the two styles, trading off between lightly-sung, placid verses and powerful bridges and choruses. For the downloading set, particularly give “Drive”, “In Brief War”, and “Death Can Dance” a fair listen. It peeves me to see bands like Charon and Sentenced get no recognition on American rock radio, instead giving that airtime to bands like Trapt and Staind-clones. This is what rock music should song like: great singing, killer solos, and strong choruses, all built on a foundation of capable musicianship. And people wonder why the only radio I listen to is the news station… Anyway, The Dying Daylights, like all Charon albums, took a couple of listens to fully embed itself in my head, but now with each listen I just want to play the damn thing again. This album may even manage to sneak into the bottom of my Top Ten list, but I know that a good portion of our audience won’t want any part of it. Overall, this is a great album…for me. If you like the turn Sentenced undertook in their musical development, I highly recommend this album.
