History & Biography Daylight Dies was formed in 1996 in North Carolina with influences such as Katatonia and My Dying Bride. Barre Gambling and drummer Jesse Haff had been jamming together since 1992. The group taped a demo called The Long Forgotten in 1999 and issued an EP called Idle the year after on Tribunal Records. This led to a contract with Relapse, a debut album and tours with Lacuna Coil (Canada and USA) and Katatonia (Europe). The band’s 2006 album was issued in March through Candlelight and was booked to open for Emperor later in the year. In 2008, the group was next picked to support Candlemass on the Swedes first tour of North America in 17 years. Lost To The Living was again mixed by Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios and appeared in June, 2008 through Candlelight Records. A North American tour with Soilwork and Swallow The Sun followed after the album's release. Candlelight Records announced October 9th, 2012 as the North American release date for Daylight Dies’ new album, A Frail Becoming. It was mixed by Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studio. Candlelight put the three albums it had released for the band into The Candlelight Years of 2015.
The band played several concerts in Iberia in 2019. These were the band's first live outings in 8 years. MMXX, a project featuring Jesse Haff and Egan O'Rourke of Daylight Dies, as well as Andrea Chiodetti of The Foreshadowing and vocalists from Swallow The Sun, Novembre, My Dying Bride, Antimatter, Klone, etc. released a debut album, entitled Sacred Cargo, in 2022.
Reviews DAYLIGHT DIES - DISMANTLING DEVOTION - CANDLELIGHT 
The alliterative Daylight Dies’ Dismantling Devotion is an equally recurrent doom metal band with strong hints of early My Dying Bride, Paramaecium, early Anathema, Katatonia and Mindrot. The band is being called death/doom in some circles, probably owing to the growling vocals of Nathan Ellis, except the band’s allegiance to the mantra of death, dying and praise thereof is highly questionable and therefore moot. Good news is two-fold here. Firstly, the band neither employs stupidity like K&F (keyboards and female vocals) nor does it ever sound contrived or faddish. Instead, the band maintains its slow to mid-paced sound, riffing, comfortably explosive doom machine, while the aforementioned Ellis rarely allows in the odd clean vocals - namely on songs like A Life Less Lived (more alliteration), Solitary Refinement or Strive to See. The sound is strong and crisp and the attitude surprisingly unpretentious. Melancholy, mood, melody and more! - Ali “The Metallian”
DAYLIGHT DIES - LOST TO THE LIVING - CANDLELIGHT 
Never before has the worn-out, the grimy, the angry, the sad and the desolate sounded so appealing. Lost To The Living is the triumph of the dismal.
Back with the alliterations, Daylight Dies has conceived of the nigh-perfect doom album. Neither the epic of Candlemass nor the funeral of Disembowelment Lost To The Living - and how similar the logic is to the phrase and concept 'Daylight Dies' - is doom metal garnished with growls deep and the alternate clean vocals which fit like a glove. It is strange to say, but the alternating vocal styles transpire without one noticing. Seamless. The music is loud, clear and emphatic. Instrumental passages replete with discrete notes remind one of Crypt Of Kerberos. The lyrics are minimalistic, but telling as the band emphasizes its music. The drawn out riffs are comparable to Novembers Doom, although they breathe brighter here. Album highlight A Portrait In White has this knockout riff that sounds so simple, yet a closer listen tells otherwise. And the guitar solos? Just right. And the keyboards? Just right because they do not exist. And the female vocals? Just right because they killed her, buried the corpse and then began recording. Fans of Opeth, My Dying Bride, Novembers Doom et al will like this, but honestly these Americans are better. - Ali “The Metallian”
Interviews
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