Review Summary: Somehow, We Are the Nightmare is even more boring than United in Regret
Arsis has to have had one the shortest listening spans of pretty much any band I've ever listened too. When I had first heard
A Celebration of Guilt and even the much abhorred
United in Regret, I was quite impressed with the band's layered guitars, melodic leanings, and all around intensity. Fifteen months later, to say that Arsis had last their lustre (aside from perhaps "A Diamond for Disease", "Lust Before the Maggots Conquest", "The Face of My Innocence, and the Depeche Mode cover, "The Things You Said") would be an understatement. With that in mind, Arsis was never as poor as a Necrophagist or Black Dahlia Murder. They were just really average.
We Are the Nightmare changes this. Sort of. The band's sound is still the same, and the song structure hasn't changed. But somehow, We Are the Nightmare is even more boring than
United in Regret.
Whilst
We Are the Nightmare has a multitude of problems, my biggest gripe revolves around just how uninspired it sounds. "Progressive Entrapment" has some decent ideas, as does "Overthrown" and parts of "Failure's Conquest", but it's all buried under the stale tech death riffing that makes up a majority of the album. Particularly annoying are "Shattering the Spell" and the title track, the former of which embodies the overdone technical sound exceedingly well, and is one of the most ridiculous non-Biomechanical songs I've heard all year. "We Are the Nightmare", on the other hand, contains the album's most obnoxious melody (DOO!-DOO!-DOO!), which immediately kills the eerie mood set by the clean guitar intro, leaving a sour taste. The rest of the album follows the same approach, which not only fills
We Are the Nightmare with a disgusting amount of filler, but also seems to suggest that Arsis songwriter, James Malone, tries too hard. Also irritating is the performance of Arsis' newest drummer, Darren Cesca. Despite his monstrous execution behind the kit (which definitely exceeds that of ex-drummer, Mike Van Dyne), Cesca's performance suffers from both predictability and its horrid production. Cesca's blast beats and fills not only feel excessive and unnecessary (much like Malone's guitar noodling), but they're also featured much too high in the mix. And to be quite frank, with Malone going wild on the fretboard, this isn't exactly what
We Are the Nightmare needs.
We Are the Nightmare isn't all bad though. Both "Progressive Entrapment" and "Sightless Wisdom" are decent to great tracks, especially the later, which has a more melodic build than the rest of the songs. But being the best songs on a poor album isn't exactly something to write home about, and though both songs are worth listening to, neither hold a candle to the best tracks on
A Celebration of Guilt or
United in Regret. And that's essentially the story surrounding Arsis' third full length album.
We Are the Nightmare is exactly what it says it is: a nightmare. Maybe someday Malone can wake up and write something as good as "Diamond for Disease" again, but I wouldn't bank on it.
