By Jonny Bakes
Australia recently seems to be becoming a dominant nation across the rock/metal sub genres without simply cloning ‘70s greats (looking at you Wolfmother and Airbourne). Hell, they’ve produced one of this year’s bloodstock headliners, which has proven to be a bold choice… I digress. In front of me I have the latest EP from Daybreak who hail from Perth, which has simply been described as heavy. I can confirm that it is exactly that, however it does go much further than that. Within the three tracks on this release they manage to draw elements from some of the modern metal genres of the last decade, most of which end in “core”.
In general, this EP has a great balance of harsh growling and melodic vocals from Shaun Cox which is very much reminiscent of the big metalcore bands that are on the scene. It’s no surprise that these guys have had successful tours supporting the likes of Parkway Drive through Australia. Each track seems to be subtly different in the genres that influence it, ‘Therapy’ is more of an out and out metalcore track, whereas ‘Bad Boy’ takes more of a djent turn and then rounding off with ‘Godfather’ which gets darker and has more of a deathcore feel to it.
The band claim that each track comes from a different angle from the heavy genre as they see it, so I hope that I’m pretty close with those angles!
The standout track for me on this is ‘Bad Boy’. It starts with a chilled guitar riff similar to something from Alter Bridge before it punches you right in the ear holes with some wonderfully chaotic chunky riffs (controlled chaos of course). I love the way they keep shaking things up here with the harsh and clean vocals and the crazy drumming from Sam Warren.
There’s certainly something of interest here for fans of the likes of Parkway Drive, Bring Me The Horizon and A Day To Remember who are looking for something new and upcoming in the genre. There’s also potential for those who are not sold on this area of the metal scene (looking at Bloodstock forums, that’s a lot of you!), maybe this will be the EP that starts to change your mind!
- ‘Godfather’ is released today (Wednesday 22 May). You can get your copy HERE.
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