Review Summary: With a very smack solid follow-up to “Terminate Damnation”, Becoming the Archetype introduce a highly competent album in a promising 2007. Dazzling beauty and boggling precision is saying the least.
An eccentric image of Jesus look-alikes greets me as I skim
Becoming the Archetype’s website, a band that has now released their second international album. Existing as only a small band known as “The Remnant” prior, the group produced an independent self-titled album before signing to Solid State, a record label that would secure the current project,
Becoming the Archetype. With so many genres stitched together, it’s hard not to second-guess the music’s credibility. Right off the bat, it’s would be very safe to say that we’re not dealing with notorious over throwers of religion, nor any rebellions of sort, quite the contrary, what with all the sleazy beards, thick hair and a lofty group-pose, landscaped with a clear sky blue complexion, perhaps, symbolizing their close connection with the divine worlds. But, I'm not here to raise conjecture. It’s indeed well pointed out that
Becoming the Archetype are a Christian band, who, to a decipherable extent mingle black, thrash and progressive death metal elements to what is, I must say, a very well crafted chunk of opus.
Their name refers to the Bible verse Genesis 1:26 which reads, "God said, 'Let us make man in our image'". This reflects the band's Christian beliefs that since, according to the Christian faith, Jesus Christ was the only person to ever be sinless, he was the ultimate archetype of humanity. It’s fairly hard to compare them to any band, and almost any attempt at matching them as a whole would just come out plain awkward. As concrete as saying something like, “These guys are totally the Opeth of Black, Thrash and Progressive Metal and Death Metal…” would sound *pant*, I’m left to infer a simple statement based on what I’ve come to experience. That is, these guys are pretty unique, and it’s not often that breaking the boundaries can make for something as artfully contrived.
Hardcore influences, in spite of being a polemical term in musicianship, are prominent, yet the technicality is almost completely destitute of these aforementioned. The album possesses a rather straight up death metal sound to it, featuring thrash metal shreds and solos, which seemingly substitute what would mostly be metalcore. With a similar range, and a modern touch reminiscent of Between the Buried and Me's "Alaska", The Physics of Fire still bears resemblance to this widely prevalent 2005 album in showcasing an enthralling progressivism. Not surprisingly given the indefinable genres, this album doesn't feel restricted, at all, and never lets up to create repetition uncalled for. Thrash influences accommodate anything to do with riffs and turn them into an assault you can't walk over, while an almost inherent Black Metal is taken care of by various instruments; harpsichord, amplified doomsday leads, needless to say. Perhaps not featuring equally abrupt tempo changes as their North Carolina counterparts, this album focuses more on retaining a fluent elegance, as various elements enter and others announce their "and scene".
Come to think of it, the guttural shouts given off by Jason Wisdom quite resemble of Bleeding Through's Brandan Schieppati, with a more inclined open-throat undertake. Then, there is the contrasting clean vocal, which is just as efficient in sweeping the atmosphere. The overall sound seems too contemporary to leave room for any black metal to be incorporated, but it is managed, even with a very Opeth-esque opening to versatile tracks like
Immolation. At this point, readers should be aware that this is not your run-of-the-mill album in terms of style.
Indeed, it's emotionally fulfilling when an album thrusts forth both beauty and, an "all your base are belong to us" guitar onslaught to top it off. This song coaxingly fits in an early As I Lay Dying influenced lead, and by the time you've heard
Autopsy, you can pretty much be sure that you're alive, not to mention come
The Great Fall, at the point of which you should be half-way towards a strained haemorrhoid owing to the ravaging riffs and mustard-gas arpeggios. Regardless of tough love, I'm not going to let myself be pushed over by this album, nor, on the other hand, be
Becoming the Archetype anything particularly brutal. In the aggregate, the brittle, crisp chords and melancholic harmonies play a big role in adding a whole new domain to the sound. But, oh in the name of balls to the wall, the thrash soloing is undeniably fast and fluid, while being handled aptly in musically fit circumstances.
Enter any heated discussion about bands, and you're inevitably going to have some chump boast about a troupe on the rationale: "that drummer plays x beats per minute he's so brutal, HOLY fudge monkey!” It's a remark that goes often, and truth be told, speed shares no relative interdependence with brutality. I like to think of BTA as being intense, or having a quality of great energy, strength, concentration, vehemence and feeling. Personally, I can't seem to find anything that shows intensity vis-*-vis speed on this list, but as for the rest, I think these are words very apt in describing an inarguably excellent
The Physics of Fire. Yes, even a piano in
Nocturne does its job in the amassment, dramatically highlighting the initial guitar pattern.
The quartet chooses to depict the ray of new hope through the notion of fire. The flame that burns eternally, or - you guessed it - the physics of fire is, indeed an abstract, yet illustrious way of representing an inner zest and devotion.
Fire Made Flesh pleads "I will carry the flame to the end of the earth with me, this fire that burns forever is the only thing that sets me free. They marched deep into the depths of the earth, to reclaim their souls from the enemy." It’s quite fascinating to look at people who see hope in the smallest of gaps, but Christian doctrines have never appealed to me, and the band loses me just around the part where God swoops in to save everything with a snap of the fingers. Insightful story, can I bang my head to it?
Let's just say practically every song, from beginning to end, has the word "fire" mentioned at least once in the lyrics, and, as a result of revolving around this term, this in turn is a concept album. With grace,
The Balance of Eternity sums up the album, a last relapse into most of what the album has to offer. I'm not out of my knickers when I say this track has a piquant balance, and in the end, so does the entire 2007 closer from the essential troupe. To put the dots on the i's, there have been many bands that have struck the public with an innovative going about of things, and
Becoming the Archetype just proves that, well, sticking to a number of style works, and here's the meat; it actually sounds good. That said, we couldn't have gotten there without the talent exuberated from the Georgia quartet, notably the precision and feel for beauty. Looking back, I’m sure we all have our inspirations, and these guys had theirs. With the closing chapter on the miracles of Jesus Christ and the tales of fire having come to and end, Grandpa carefully shuts the book, and whispers in the ear of unblemished children, “Good night, sweet dreams..."
