Review Summary: Massive Changes Ensure...But Averageness Isn't One Of Them.
Utterly different from "Son" in all aspects. While this is expected with the loss of their "aggressive" lead vocalist, on the new album, ACB tries to captivate their previous audience and possibly to keep their names on Solid State (Christian metalish record label), throw in some unneeded aggressiveness that is utterly rubbish: Cody, their previous secondary vocalist/guitarist screams with excessive static masking his voice so that it sounds "hardcore", possibly, which is unusual, because careful ears will learn that on "Son", Cody is perfectly capable of screaming as well as his brother (one can tell by the two differing voices of screaming), which is slightly backed up by their video (although we can't base everything on a music video). Come Now Sleep is an experimental album, possibly from their experimental emotions after lineup changes and the loss of their lead vocalist. It begins with a 7 minute track that is somewhat wavering--and this immediately leads into the album: the entire album is a little bit wavering: its not really sure what it wants to be. There's plenty of Christianity smothered all over the album, and "Wrong Body" may possibly be about homosexuals not being accepted in the Christian society with the "will you still take me?", although the mentioning of bloodiness doesn't really make sense. While the album is not advertised as being a concept album, all songs carry something over to the next song, such as the talk of grace in both "The Hoard" and "This is It, This is It", and "New Sun" is then referred to in "Tides". On terms of vocals, Cody is completely average, and his shaky/wavering voice fits the mood of the wavy synthy-feel of the guitars, and some songs really have a strong mood, such as "Wrong Body" that are much stronger than the previous ballads in "Son, I...". Heaviness-wise, Come Now Sleep doesn't really feature any of the heaviness seen in their previous album, in fact, "The Hoard", which is almost exactly like their demo, is probably the hardest song there. "Tides" is their strongest song in their album, with the best vocal performance and the strongest emotions (excluding "Wrong Body", which I consider the best ballad). However, the static-screaming is completely a turn-off because its very gimmicky and Cody can scream perfectly anyways. The album ends with "Timothy" which is weakened by its over-extension. At 12 minutes, much of the time is just experimental guitar, and it doesn't really contribute to anything massive. You keep expecting something huge, but it doesn't seem to come. Drums are strong on this album, and fills and rolls don't seem that hard to the drummer, Aaron. Overall, this album is completely average Change? Oh yeah. Golden? Not really.
