Opening with title track Alias, Sleep Waker waste absolutely no time in kicking you in the teeth. The growls are offset with the clean vocals and there is a strong Architects meets Beartooth vibe.
Cold Moon’s melodic calm intro increases in tempo but the short two-minute track is a filler between the brutal Strangers and the great Melatonin. The former being a breakdown masterpiece while the latter deceives you into thinking it’s quite mellow before kicking in with some sick instrumentation.
110 Minutes is a bit of a strange one for me, it abruptly stops as if changing song and then kicks back in with a slightly different sound. It’s not a terrible track, I’m just not sure it fits in.
Closing track Distance is one of the stronger tracks on the record, although the first few lines of vocals didn’t strike right with me, they sounded a bit too hoarse compared to the rest but once past that, it’s a great song.
Overall Alias is a good album which fans of heavier metal are sure to love!