Sleeping Giant

Finished People

Written by: MBC on 01/12/2014 16:17:35

It has been three years since the release of American Christian hardcore band Sleeping Giant’s excellent “Kingdom Days In An Evil Age”. That album was a great mix of aggressive energy and a strong understanding of melody lead by the ferocious screaming and personal and passionate lyrics of frontman Tom Green. Along with a band like For Today, Sleeping Giant are often considered standard bearers within Christian hardcore as they tirelessly proclaim their faith and never seem to falter on their mission. On their album “Finished People”, released earlier this year on Century Media Records, they carry on delivering hard hitting, faith-filled songs, but unfortunately the album does not quite live up to its predecessor.

In the three years since “Kingdom Days..” Sleeping Giant seem to have changed their approach to song writing a bit. The heavy sound, staccato riffs and triggered drums have remained intact, but overall this is the most melodic album from the band so far. Green has toned down his screaming excessively and is focusing more on clean singing and melodic shouting. As such this does not have to be a problem, but unfortunately the vocal melodies this time around are often not strong enough to carry the songs. At times, it seems like Green is more concerned with preaching his message than creating memorable moments of melody. Unfortunately, the songs are often lacking of the aggression that has been present on the band’s earlier work, perhaps due to the general absence of Green’s screaming. This is really a shame, since he has one of the strongest and most passionate screams in modern hardcore, and although it is still momentarily present, for the most part he seems to have abandoned this vocal style, which is baffling to me.

The songs do flow well together though, and there is not a lot of material that seems out of place or particularly redundant for the album as a whole. A clear album highlight is the track “Violence”, which features Levi The Poet on guest vocals delivering a stunningly emotional and powerful spoken word performance over minimalistic drums, piano chords and Green doing background vocals. The song comes as a surprise and actually stands as one of the strongest songs on the album despite its subtle nature. Due to the lack of highlights and somewhat bland feel of the album, the uniqueness of the song stands out as a breath of fresh air.

Overall “Finished People” feels like a step back for Sleeping Giant. Fans of the band should be able to enjoy the album, but newcomers are perhaps better off starting with some of the band’s earlier work.

Download: Clutches, Death Knell, Violence, Brother’s Keeper
For the fans of: The Great Commission, Fit For A King, For Today, Mouth Of The South, P.O.D.
Listen: Facebook

Release date 19.08.2014
Century Media

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