Review Summary: Set phasers on standard!
My immediate thought was, “I’ve heard this before”. Indeed, this metalcore/death metal album is not captivatingly fresh, and remains mostly in the average metalcore territory. The breakdowns are nothing outstanding, the growls interest but are run of the mill, and yet I enjoyed the music within. I must explain this phenomenon. Admittedly, I enjoy generic music now and then, and there’s just enough modern production on this metalcore cake to please the hungry masses. However, like a typical birthday cake, the sweetness of the icing can’t make up for the store-bought, mundane flavour. Still, I like cake anyway.
This is an appealing metalcore album that comes with wonderful teeth polish, but weak mint flavouring. The production fills in some gaps of non-imagination, but you can only butter up standard riffs for so long before cracks are revealed. The production is silky smooth, but the riffs and growls go down so smooth that they don’t punch hard - they only lightly tickle. It’s probably a strange complaint to focus on but I’ll be honest, I zoned out the music when I played it in the car. There was less head banging involved and more cringing at how Becoming The Archetype refused to set a rigorous pace. Essentially, the riffs were nifty but their chaos level was low with a lack of decent hooks. There was some standout guitar work, but forgettable riffs are as prolific as the gems, and the gems are few and far between - there’s some nice shredding in the first track, but otherwise riffs are so basic it practically sounds like nu-metal at times.
There’s some decent riffs in here but compared to other metalcore bands absolutely crushing heads in the ring I fail to see what Becoming The Archetype bring to the game. I will say the clean vocals were squeaky clean - the auto-tune was generous to say the least. The singing was indeed decent, at times quite good, but overwhelmingly electronic sounding from the auto-tune at points, and overall standard metalcore vocals sounding like old school Demon Hunter. The album is just good enough, it gave me a new metalcore album to enjoy for a bit, but tracks are so formulaic with predictable riffs and very similar growls it gets old fast. I seriously doubt this album will be remembered much farther in the future, but for now, it’s a nifty distraction from day-to-day life. Average riffs are still riffs, and this is at least a well played album with stable songwriting, and well produced modern metal. It could’ve been better but it’s not bad by any means.
