Review Summary: A very bright light to guide all of the terrible metalcore bands home from being lost in the sea of mediocrity.
For almost four years as of today, I have listened to the genre of metal / metalcore fairly exclusively. I am a huge music fan as well as a huge metalcore fan, but this doesn't mean that I can't see how ridiculously bad some bands are. My eyes are not glossed over, blocking the view of the sea of terrible and mediocre bands that plague the genre (see: Attack Attack). The genre as a whole is becoming so formulaic that I'm starting to recognize the similarities between a generic metalcore band and a pop band (intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge/breakdown, chorus, fade out). This is not a new development, though, as 99% of the metalcore reviews on Sputnik start off with an introduction paragraph in vein of my own, commenting on the flooding of terrible -core bands, et cetera. Having listened to many of these bands, whether they be good or not, you become accustomed to the mediocrity and accept it as the uglier siamese twin of good metalcore bands, connected at the brain - you just can't have one without the other. This is where the band Architects comes in with their release Hollow Crown: a beacon of light shooting down from the heavens of metal, breaking the dark clouds (represented in real life by scene kids) to reveal a sparkle of hope.
The first time I heard Architects was a related YouTube video from another band on Century Media. I saw that their single 'Early Grave' had garnered quite a bit of views, which is usually a good sign for a certain song or band. The only exception I can think of is 'Stick Stickly' having 1.3 Million views. After getting through 1/4th of the song, I sat up in my chair and wiped the drool away from my face as my eyes widened to the size of baseballs. I can only imagine that this is similar to the reaction of people first viewing '2 Girls 1 Cup'. The last time I had been this pleased with a metal song on first listen was 'Pray for Plagues'. I got the album as fast as possible and put it in, hyping myself up to the level that Colors by BTBAM was.
Hollow Crown, on the whole, is an excellent album. It almost plays out like a good action movie, with spikes of adrenaline every so often and then parts where the action flat lines but interest is still held fairly well. The first four songs build the overall energy so well that it was hard for me to believe the rest of the album could go so well, and in a sense I was right. 'In Elegance', while being a fairly decent track, doesn't measure up to the beginning of the album. I was delighted when 'We're All Alone' came on, though, hitting me like a truck of bricks. The next two tracks lower the bar a little bit by sliding ever-so-closely to the mediocrity commented on earlier. After this I was pleased again by how the bar was raised right back up by 'One of These Days' and 'Dead March'. The final two songs are a great way to end a metalcore album with such intensity, slowing it down before bringing the heat one last time.
As far as musicianship goes, Architects have some serious skill. This album is their most accessible to date, branching further off of the technicality first set up by their first EP 'Nightmares'. That is not to say that the album is boring or in any way leaves you hungering for a bit more substance to the complication of the riffage, there are just many more parts with chord-like progressions rather than strange tapping patterns displayed on earlier tracks like 'Buried at Sea'. There is also something (or many things) good to be said of Sam Carter's vocals. The screams are comparable to Oli Sykes' standard yell on 'Suicide Season', but with a greater deal of force behind every emphasized letter, bringing a hardcore feel into the mix. Carter's clean vocals are not the best I've ever heard, but how raw it is while being well-heard is one of the definite points that draw me to the album still (I'm very tired of bands having Chiodos-like vocals to appeal to different markets of 15 year old girls).
According to all my acquaintances that enjoy the -core sides of metal, as well as the music suggestions on these own Sputnik forums, Architects have solidified themselves as one of the premier bands to be listened to for someone trying to break into the genre. If the quality submission of Ruin did not earn them that respect, than this album absolutely did. The vocals are interesting without having to be overproduced, the guitar work and drumming stand out in their own right, and all of the tracks are actually discernible (contrary to almost all metalcore albums). This album is a definite listen to any fan of the genre, not because it 'has something for everyone' or some other saying that is overused, but because this is simply a very well made album.
Suggested Tracks:
"Early Grave"
"We're All Alone"
"One of These Days"
