REVIEW: Dayseeker - Creature In The Black Night

Hailing from Southern California, DAYSEEKER has long been known for their emotionally charged blend of post-hardcore, ambient rock, and melodic metal. While they’ve never leaned heavily into concept albums, their sixth full-length release, Creature In The Black Night comes close with its horror-inspired themes and cinematic vibes. From the first chord, you can hear that this is clearly their most immersive and deliberate musical statement to date. With its recurring vampiric imagery and death iconography, Creature In The Black Night may divide the opinions of followers of the band but will surely generate new interest from a new group of people.

The first single, Pale Moonlight, offers an introduction to what people could expect from vocalist RORY RODRIGUEZ and the band in this era. The track showcases the sharper emotional edges and heavier melodic weight that carries through all of the songs on the album, with the vocals delivering aching vulnerability and seductive intensity. Charged with a captivating darkness that pulses beneath every note, with lines like “Fuck me in your dreams like you can't escape it; I can make a scene when I feel degraded”, Creature In The Black Night might be one of the slower tempo songs on the album, but it certainly conjures up specific images that accompany the listener as you make your way through the tracks.

After a brief introduction to the seduction of Creature In The Black Night, Crawl Back To My Coffin solidifies that, though it is not a traditional concept album, it could be, if that is what the band wanted. There’s no other way to interpret the line “Came all this way, got out of my grave again, just to crawl back to my coffin” other than the narrator speaking of death and rebirth. We all know that a shapeshifter is something that can physically transform its form, and track Shapeshift encapsulates this with its continuation of the thread of darker, cinematic imagery with more shadowy, visual identity, with a synth-heavy guitar backing from GINO SGAMBELLURI and RAMONE VALERIO, and heavy drums from ZAC MAYFIELD.

Soulburn follows next, driven by a melodic fire that meets lyrical precision; though the song is one of the slower tracks on the album, RODRIGUEZ spits venom with each line, “And when you say goodbye to all you've lost, I’ll be there so I can watch your soul burn alive”, spinning heartbreak into haunting harmony. What appears on the forefront as a sultry, vampiric anthem, Bloodlust soon reveals itself to be more about letting go of inhibitions and surrendering to the shadows within, conjuring images of dramatic graveyard rendezvous, with its deep layers of storytelling.

Despite the track name, Cemetery Blues presents itself as the one track from the album which has a more typical DAYSEEKER sound to it, with tragic, emotive tropes like “The afterlife is colder than they told me it would be”. Nocturnal Remedy is a standout example of the way DAYSEEKER delivers poetically tragic lyricism. The song is expertly built around a chorus that's magnetic and demands attention. RODRIGUEZ also manages to showcase both his powerful clean singing alongside his screams, which heightens the emotional intensity of the track.

The Living Dead slows down the allure after a run of high-energy tracks, bringing in a more heartbroken, sorrowful pace. It’s a track that is unflinching in its honesty and haunting in its beauty. Bringing the tempo back up towards the end of the album, Meet The Reaper aches with longing, tangled in the tension of love and surrender, with lines like “I’m addicted to the siren song, it’s a dull sound, drowning me out”. It evokes the death-tinged imagery that has been woven into the fabric of the album.

Closing out the album is Forgotten Ghost, another track that breaks you in the softest way, with longing and aching feelings of grief and regret. Whilst we were expecting a heavier end to the album, it feels only right for DAYSEEKER to leave the listener wishing the story would unfold into more chapters, but instead being shown that life is temporary and nothing is promised.

With Creature In The Black Night, DAYSEEKER have clearly evolved from their post-hardcore roots into something darker, and more mature. Crafting lyrics with raw emotion alongside seductive melody shows why they are considered to be a band whose songs continue to unfold across genres with heart and precision.

Score: 8/10

Creature In The Black Night is out on 24th October 2025 via Spinefarm Records

Words: Lou Viner-Flood

Photos: Dayseeker