This is the fourth full length album released from DAYLIGHT DIES  two years after Dismantling Devotion that saw the light of the day in 2006. This ablum is the second one with Nathan Ellis on the vocals who took Guthrie Iddings' place after the No Reply release in 2002.

To be honest with you I didn't know this band from North Carolina until I saw them on-stage as the opening act for the latest CANDLEMASS North American tour. Then I found difficult to follow their music because the band's presence on-stage was that stationary that could be characterized as indifferent. So, I was more than sceptic when the promo version of Lost To The Living fell on my hands.

The album opens with Cathedral a song that has distinct early PARADISE LOST influences with the down tuned guitars and the doomy feeling. The sound production is crystal clear and keeps the perfect balance between the distorted and the clean melodic sounds. This track made me think that my first almost bad impression of this band was exclusively due to their weak on-stage show and not to their music. With A Portrait in White I felt even more confident on my latter thought; the song gains some speed and depth through the nicely put guitar effects. The solid rhythm section looks way back to the BLACK SABBATH days when Doom Metal was still an embryo.
Usually, this kind of music is not my cup of tea since I find the too-depressive atmosphere kind of boring and after a while I loose all my initial interest. Fortunately, this did not happen with Lost To The Living mainly because the songs are riff based comprising some very good guitar harmonies and even some melodies that can haunt your mind after a while. Like in And a Slow Surrender that kicks in really slow with some clean arpeggios and nicely put keyboards (or is it a real violin?) slowly building the tension that finds an outlet when the distortion enters.
Egan O'Rourke sits behind the microphone with his clean voice in Lost Alone that slightly touches the Gothic sound bringing in additional keyboards and clean guitar melodies. The album closes after the almost eight minutes of The Morning Light; this song has some tempo changes and I believe it is focused on the gloomy atmosphere where the slightly deeper sounding vocals perfectly fit.
So, this album turned my head around with DAYLIGHT DIES who (I believe) have to work more on their on-stage performance although I understand that this music genre does not really help them on this direction. The album is very good and it is perfect for the early PARADISE LOST or the mid KATATONIA fans.

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