Rediscovered: As I Lay Dying – “Shadows Are Security”

In the mid-2000’s, metal was at a crossroad of sorts. The nu-metal trend had all but fizzled out at that time, with most of the genre’s leading lights fizzling in quality. Meanwhile, while the genre is incredibly oversaturated now, metalcore wasn’t quite at the popularity it is now – bands like Killswitch Engage and Eighteen Visions were just beginning to reach their peaks. In the middle of the 2000’s, there existed plenty of bands who were indebted to melodic death metal bands like At The Gates and In Flames, but that subgenre of metal hadn’t even been done to death at the time.

Enter As I Lay Dying. Before everything with vocalist Tim Lambesis went down a few years ago, the band was at the top of their game with 2010’s The Powerless Rise. Arguably the band’s masterwork, the album contained some of the band’s best songs yet, especially on album highlights “Parallels”, “Anger And Apathy”, and “Without Conclusion”. However, there’s a number of fans who believe 2007’s An Ocean Between Us and 2005’s Shadows Are Security are where the band peaked. And I can’t really blame them – while AOBU and TPR are arguably better albums, Shadows Are Security is where the band really came into their own.

Shadows Are Security has many of AILD’s early career highlights – “Confined”, “Through Struggle”, “The Darkest Nights” all loom large here – but it’s slow burners like mid-album cut “Reflection” that really vaulted the band to the top of the heap a decade ago. Seriously, these songs were plastered all over FUSE and MTV Headbangers Ball, and it’s really this album that vaulted the band to popularity. Obviously the band would further their fiery metalcore sound on later albums, but if “Confined” wasn’t your Myspace profile song for a hot minute in 2005, there’s not much hope for you.

Seriously though, Shadows Are Security remains an important milestone in the metalcore genre. You’d be remiss to not give this a spin, as it’s among the more important albums of the 2000’s in general.