Architects - All Gods Have Abandoned Us (Record Review)

Architects don’t even let you get prepared for a single second, the intro song ‘Nihilist’ kicks you instantly off whatever you were sitting on and keeps punching you for the whole of its 3-minute duration with its cutting-edge lyrics. One track in and you already know that Architects have, again, leveled up in comparison to their last record ‘Lost Forever // Lost Together’. While the mood is the same, ‘All Gods Have Abandoned Us’ simply tops up on the foundation these guys have already built with all their previous releases.

‘Deathwish’ taps into the more melodic section of the group while ‘Phantom Fear’ returns with the usual doom spreading darkness that we're to expect from them. With ‘Downfall’, which had gotten released just a week before the full album dropped, Architects give every critic a flawless piece of music to frantically search for mistakes.

A highlight on the record is definitely the song they first teased, ‘A Match Made In Heaven’, which was a perfect choice to represent the entirety of the record, summoning what they do best, squished it into a song and released it onto the world.

Shaking up your emotions, more and more, track by track, Architects pull you into their minds completely with thundering drums, haunting guitar sections, electronic-beats and interludes that smoothly fade from one song to another.

The finishing touch and, definitely, the most eccentric and outstanding track on this piece of art is ‘Memento Mori’. An eight-minute long song that simply shows once more as to why Architects are such a reinventing and unique band and one of the best British exports these days. Astonishing with endless instrumental creativity and lyrical plays that will leave you with your mouth open. Not to mention Carter’s unreal vocal performance throughout the whole record. It only gets more intense than this at their live shows, which are not to be missed as these folks hit the road to promote this new release.

Favorite track(s): Downfall, Memento Mori, Nihilist

Overall: 9/10

Cheerio xx

P.S.: If you’re in the UK, do not miss the band’s upcoming tour, especially their highly anticipated London gig at the Koko. Huge and very well deserved so.

Tour of the Year - Parkway Drive / Architects / Thy Art Is Murder - January 23rd, 2016 - Zenith, Munich, GER (Concert Review)

The Zenith is one of the biggest venues in Munich and, especially for bands in this genre, it's one of the greatest accomplishments and verification of success to be able to play it and actually (almost) sell it out. As did Parkway Drive with this one. Just over 5.000 people attended the gig, making it PWD's biggest headine show outside their home country, Australia.

The tension before the start of the first support band, Thy Art Is Murder [7], gets more and more unbearable as the lights dim. Reason for that is the recent departure of the Australian deathcore band's front man and vocalist CJ. His vocals being rather significant for the band's sound, the new live sound would be an interesting experience. Especially since it was only the second time the new singer appeared with the band after the tour's debut in Würzburg a day earlier. 

But the doubts reveal themselves to be unnecessary as the new vocalist, Nick Arthur (Molotov Solution), delivers an outstanding performance. None the less, the most impressive, personally, are still the drum tracks and how well Lee Staton delivers them live.

Next up are one of the UK's best exports these days, Architects [10]. Due to 'only' playing a support slot, the band's setlist remains rather short, and also mostly unchanged from the one they had on their latest festival run in summer 2015, but it none the less gets the crowd moving in every corner of the venue. While their stage show never really includes much apart from a huge banner in the bag and a few light effects (or some special effects for their last headliner show at the Roundhouse in London in March 2015), this time, not even the banner made it onto the stage. But these guys don't need much of a show, their performance itself is enough to fully deliver everything perfectly and with a thundering sound as they're giving it their all. Architects always deliver, no matter their time given or the stage they're presented with.

Finally, the headliner is getting doomingly close and the lights slowly dim as Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen comes to an end. The whole room gets quiet, the stage is tinted dark red, before a few single spotlights show the silhouettes of the band members behind a curtain. A few guitar riffs in and the curtain, gracing the band's latest album cover, drops down to the ground with a boom of the drums and a just as loud bang from two confetti canons at the corner of the stage, drowning the crowd in a red and white menace of paper. Parkway Drive [9] have arrived. It takes some time, but, at latest, as soon as the sounds to Vice Grip (their first released song off of their latest record 'Ire') bellow through the hall, every single person joins the madness. The show is further undermined with special visual effects, as well as different stage set ups getting revealed as another curtain drops behind the band, and, obviously, flames shooting into the sky for the last couple of tracks.

This tour is a circus full of attractions and is not to be missed if you have any chance to attend it.

Overall: 9/10 

Architects - Lost Forever || Lost Together (Record Review)

While this record has been out for a long time, I just dug out my review of it from a couple of months ago and feel like posting it on here as I think it is one of the most genre shaping records of the past year.

This band has had its heights and lows before and recovered from a massive drop in their career. Hollow Crown/The Here And Now is up to this day a rather weak spot of the band as they ended up playing in front of almost nobody in small clubs after starting to fill venues with the capacity of over 2 000 people. When they put out Daybreaker, it seemed as if they were finally back on track and slowly started climbing upwards again. When LF//LT dropped within a year after that, nobody would have expected it to be such a huge progression and recovery, especially creatively speaking, again.

Gravedigger doesn't give you much time to prepare before it fully kicks in with huge riffs and Sam's indistinctive voice. The thought of them ever failing at creating huge tunes like that is hard to imagine at this point, seeing as the first song already has some of the biggest moments of the 2014 metalcore scene.

Naysayer doesn't let a simple spark of that energy die and drags you along the hurricane that is this record. "You can't stop me giving a fuck" states their intentions with this track more than clearly. After that, they don't stop with criticizing and approaching problems such as religion, as displayed in Broken Cross. Without slipping into the all too often heard same old sentences, they manage to take a new turn on the whole subject. 

They do not disappoint a single time, instead, the record gets stronger with each song. The Devil Is Near's riff constructions throughout the whole song, Dead Man Talking's huge chant during the chorus, the anthem that is C.A.N.C.E.R., the more melodic and dramatic side with Colony Collapse ... I could go on.

To sum it up, the emotional weight Architects can put into their songs is uncanny and certainly one of a kind. There's hardly a band around these days to manage to speak to and move such a huge crowd with heavy tracks like these as them. To have a band in this genre headline a sold-out venue the size of the Roundhouse in London would've been unimaginable a few years back. 

While the younger generations are certainly focused on bands such as them, with the flood of artists in the genre, they still managed to stand out and draw in the fanbase they have now.

They were not only in my favorite records of 2014 but certainly already managed to place themselves in my favorite gigs rank list of 2015. Unlike (sadly) a lot of bands these days, they actually deliver an even bigger show live than they already do on record and create a one of a kind atmosphere.

Favorite song(s): Gravedigger, Naysayer, Colony Collapse, Broken Cross

Overall: 9,5/10

Architects are currently finishing up their Australia tour. Check their website for the remaining dates: www.architectsofficial.com

Cheerio xx