“It’s definitely been a fight for us,” says Tim Lambesis, vocalist of metalcore kings AS I LAY DYING. And you know why it’s been a fight? Because of people like me calling them metalcore in the first sentence of a story for a metal website. I might as well call them Christian rap if I’m trying to pump them up a bit here (uh, and speaking of Christianity… well, we’ll get to that, but please stick around, okay?). But, you know what? I am trying to pump them up a bit, if not just for ‘Beyond Our Suffering’, the totally raging first song on the band’s new album.

‘Beyond Our Suffering’, which kicks off The Powerless Rise, the band’s fifth album (fourth for Metal Blade, who had the good sense to sign this band when both they and metalcore were young, and stick with the band throughout the post-metalcore fall of the late-‘00s), is the sound of a band who aren’t wimpy metalcore dudes, who aren’t snivelling religious weaklings, who aren’t your younger brother’s band anymore. It’s the sound of THE HAUNTED, the sound of SLAYER, the sound of pure aggressive thrash. It’s the sound of the band winning.

“‘Beyond Our Suffering’ pushed things the furthest we’ve gone in that heavy and intense direction,” says Lambesis, “but then because we tried to spread out and progress in all the elements of our band, some of the more melodic and, I guess the word would be vibe-y, sides of our band, songs like ‘Anger And Apathy’ are moody. While still being clearly a metal song, it’s got a lot of melody and moodiness in it, which really contrasts a song like ‘Beyond Our Suffering’.”

Damn it, Lambesis. This is why it’s a fight for you guys. “Vibe-y”? We’re hoping to get you guys reacquainted with dudes whose idea of “vibe-y” is MORE beer than last night AND the same sweatshirt. But you gotta love a band that doesn’t care, and while As I Lay Dying may have some of metalcore’s clichés down pat, they are one of the genre’s leaders; the way I see it, someone has to do yelling verses and clean choruses, even just one band. Why not these guys? With this album they pretty much have all aspects of their sound down pat.

“What we were able to do with this album is take the different elements of our band and push them all,” he says. “Sometimes I think there’s only so far you can expand in the heavy direction. I think with our last album [‘07’s An Ocean Between Us] we tried to make things a little bit faster and brought in some of the thrash influences to bring some of that energy in. But just when we felt like we’d hit a wall and I didn’t know what else we could do to get things heavier and thrashier, then we wrote ‘Beyond Our Suffering’. With that contrast, we’re able to create some ups and downs that invoke a little bit more feeling.”

The album has a certain amount of raw energy to it, an aggression that the band’s last few have lacked. It’s with a bit of apprehension I mention this to Lambesis, but he’s aware of this and is happy it’s been remedied.

“I know,” he says. “It’s funny; this is our ninth year as a band. We’re all, I think, very young, especially compared to most of our peers who are at a similar level as us. We just wanted to prove that we still have plenty of aggression to come. It’s not like Metallica’s Black Album where they had reached that point in their career where they had gotten out the majority of their aggression; our version of our Black Album is still in front of us. It’s years in the future; we’ve still got a lot of aggression to get out before then.”

Now, that sounds good, but being young has actually worked against the band in the past. Like the metalcore and religious-dudes stigmas they’ve had to battle against in the realm of the longhair, being babyfaced shredders hasn’t helped their cause.

“With the album we just released, particularly the opening track, if the band was ten years older than us and all had beards and came from a different era and had a different look, I don’t think there would be a question to anybody in the world that they’re definitely a metal band,” says Lambesis. “But because for whatever reason it may be, because we’re not ashamed of what we believe as Christians, or that none of us are 30 yet, I don’t know what the formula is, but I don’t see how you could listen to ‘Beyond Our Suffering’ and not think of it as a metal song.”

So there’s the challenge, and while the jean-jacketed jury is still battling it out in the back room over the band in general, the online contingent got a sneak preview of the new album before its release date, just before we chatted with Lambesis.

“The album leaked last night,” he says, “so we’re starting to get feedback from fans writing us. The feedback’s all been great so far; we’ll see as time goes on if it stands the test of time. But I think it’s by far our best release and, personally, it’s the performance that I’m the most proud of.”

When pressed about if it bothers him that the disc leaked before the release date, Lambesis doesn’t seem too worried by it, saying he knew it was going to happen eventually.

“Most of the time Metal Blade is pretty good about keeping stuff from getting leaked until the final week before the release, so this is a little earlier than we expected, but at least the feedback’s been great, so hopefully it will generate some more excitement and some honest people out there will go and purchase it because they like what they’re hearing.”

The album marks the first time bassist Josh Gilbert had a hand in the songwriting process, and, good news for those of us who have, like, four Mortician CD EPs, it turns out he’s part of the reason the band is getting heavier, as it turns out he played a big part in crafting the aforementioned ‘Beyond Our Suffering’. (Gilbert was on the band’s last disc, but came on as a hired gun at the last minute, and just played what was already there for him.)

“I had written all the vocal melodies and myself and the band collectively had written the instrumental side of things,” says Lambesis about last album out. “So what he played on bass and what he sang was already set out for him. He’s not listed as a band member on that album because he essentially came in as a hired recording guy and then we realized he did such a great job that we made him part of the band. On this album, he heavily contributed to the songwriting process and some of my favourite songs were a lot of Josh’s ideas. So it helps spread out the diversity of our sound; it’s another songwriter, and another head to add to the monster.”

Monster? That’s totally metal. Guys, you walk a fine line, but we’ll take ya. Welcome to the dark side.