Band Name - Archspire
Genre - Technical Death Metal
Label - Season of Mist
Release Date - September 22nd, 2017
Line Up -
Oli Peters - Vocals
Tobi Morelli - Guitars
Dean Lamb - Guitars
Jared Smith - Bass
Spencer Prewett - Drums
I still fondly remember the time when I was deeply in love with the music of 'Necrophagist'. That phase passed quite quickly and I never really got interested in any other technical death acts much (well, it's hard to after you listen to the best that the genre has to offer actually), but I never forgot 'Muhammed Suiçmez' and his excellent song-writing. It's been a long time, its 2017 and 'Archspire' has managed to make me relive that elation.
This album in its thirty and a half minutes length does what many dare not hope to achieve in more than twice its length. The songwriting is top-notch, while the technically pleasing instruments exquisitely complement each other and as a refreshing take the production for once does indeed highlight aspects otherwise would have been lost in the cacophony of tech-death. This album did have many of the transitions which quite often make or break a technical death album, but 'Archspire' used these quite methodically most of the time just using it to showcase one instrument above others.
If I try to break down the efforts of the musicians, the vocals might be a bit annoying at first listen, but did become a lot pleasing once I got used to it. 'Oli Peters' know when to up the ante with his delivery blurring comprehension and when to make his pronunciation almost decipherable creating catchy as hell chorus lines. He also occasionally used his vocals to emphasize some technical bits of the instrumentation as well. The dual guitars do their job thoroughly giving the listeners a mix of delicious riffs, horrendously speedy pieces and short yet enjoyable solos. Unorthodox to many metal albums the bass line is quite audible here, even surpassing the guitar-work at times and smalls bits of bass solos does whet the appetite as well The drumming by 'Spencer Prewett' was precise to their style and does what it should by being blindingly fast but never really overshadowing the other stuff going on.
Despite having a very short length compared to albums these days, 'Relentless Mutation' has all the goods on offer, yet this length does indeed evoke a sense of incompleteness at times. But then again this shortness does help motivate for multiple listens as a matter of fact. I, myself, have always favored quality over quantity. The music at times might seem rather melodic due to the catchy nature of some of some of the choruses and the beautiful riffs on offer. On a side note the lyrics also seem to have much more originality than average tech-death with the band trying to create almost a concept album here.
The nature of the overall experience of this album does make finding highlights a tough choice, but among the seven tracks I did like these four a bit more than the others - 'Human Murmuration', 'Remote Tumor Seeker', 'Relentless Mutation' and 'Calamus Will Animate'
'Archspire' have created not only one of the best albums of '17 but also one of the most memorable tech-death albums in the last few years. These guys are one of the best if not the best modern technical death metal has to offer, by far.
Overall Score -
9 out of 10.
For more info check out the bands metal-archives page -
https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Archspire/3540326229
No comments:
Post a Comment