"Awakened" is the sixth studio album and eighth album of the band "As I Lay Dying" and I must say that they have since their first release "Beneath The Encasing Of Ashes" perfected their style. The new album is pumped full of hard hitting riffs, filigree guitar, strong drums and a powerful voice of Tim Lambesis. The melodic vocals parts by bassist Josh Gilbert round out all the songs. In each song the band put a lot of effort and avoids Fortunately, the standard metalcore equalize by not only breakdowns and no primitive texts and techno elements. The song "Defender" stands out particularly, since it represents an exciting exchange between melodic vocals and harsh screams. The solos totally convincing and the bass and drums game bring fun. This proves "Defender" clearly the quality of the album. Now the CD. The Deluxe Edition is designed elaborately. It comes as a high quality Digibook and has a chic layout. On the DVD a few interesting videos including the making-ofs are included. The booklet stands out especially because it is like reading a book with comments of the band members to the songs and a few images. It is really worth this version instead of the normal CD to buy, because the two bonus tracks and the DVD should enrich the package and we support this masterpiece. "As I Lay Dying" is one of the true sizes of the metal cores and so can be said in conclusion that the album is a milestone in the history of the band.
