Dave McKenna reviewed a March 2007 Killswitch Engage performance for The Washington Post:

Right before headliner Killswitch Engage took the 9:30 club stage on Friday, the house PA let out an accidental and brutal blast of feedback. Considering the entree that was about to be served, that sonic boom was an appropriate appetizer.

Fans of the band come for a pummeling. And on this night, the first of two sold-out dates here for the Massachusetts quintet, they got one. During "Take This Oath," Justin Foley kicked out a double-bass drum beat heavy and rapid enough to break up any audience member's kidney stones. Before "Rose of Sharyn," screamer/frontman Howard Jones ordered the crowd in front of the stage to start up a circle pit, a sadomasochistic rock ritual that is to regular club dancing what the demolition derby is to a Sunday drive. Members of the black-clad mass went at each other as if prize money would go to the last one standing.

The performance took a toll on the band, too. The beefy and bald Jones hopped all over the stage and even ran into the balcony during "Rose of Sharyn," as his voice alternated between a melodic croon and an abrasive roar that must be heard to be believed. By the halfway point in the 80-minute set, he'd sweated through the long-sleeved, blue button-down shirt that covered his inked-up arms and torso.

Various hard-rock cliches were there for anybody looking. "When Darkness Falls" followed the typical Killswitch song pattern: savage opening, lilting chorus, savage close. Killswitch's lyrics often mine the same quasi-macabre vein that many other bands targeting an adolescent male audience do (to wit: "When darkness falls, we are reborn").

Yet there were signs of maturing amid the mayhem. "As Daylight Dies," a stop-the-madness plea from the band's most recent release (sample lyric: "How much is enough for us to see the light? / How much blood must be shed?"), came off as sort of "Blowin' in the Wind," filtered through a Boeing 747 turbine.