Archspire debuted in 2010 with an EP of the same name as their debut album, "All Shall Align." This album is extremely mediocre. There are three things I like about it: "Deathless Ringing," the title track, and the length.
"Deathless Ringing" is basically what every Archspire song: fast riffage, sweeps, tapping, incredible musicianship, unmatched precision, etc. It's no wonder the put this track first. The title track is the last one on the album and it reminds me of "Xenoverse Discharger" by Wormed because of its atmospheric feel. It's just a good outro.
So that brings us to the length of the album. The reason I like the length of "All Shall Align" is because it's short. At just 32 minutes, this below-average little album just sort of flies by without a lasting memory (other than "Deathless Ringing"). Yes, you read that correctly, this album is not very good. That's why I like only three things instead of (wait, how many tracks are there?) eight.
Okay so this album may be very lacking in quality, but it has potential. Like when you listen to some of the riffs on here, there are some good moments especially in the second track, "Archspire," but none of which are very great. I mean, there are good moments in this track. The song as a whole is just a bunch of different ideas thrown together with some Origin-moments and Beyond Creation bass in the background. Actually this is basically every song.
It's painful because this album has so much potential. It's just not organized in any orderly fashion, so it falls short of good and descends into mediocrity. Like there are times on this album when I am genuinely excited to hear what's coming next, but it's ultimately killed due to lack of quality and too many stops in the music. I want to enjoy this album, but I just can't when it can't even be coherent. Also, I feel like with Archspire's past two albums, it's evident that they require good production. Archspire's sound relies on it and they didn't have that for this album.
There's this really cool part in "Ancient of Ancients" that Archspire manages to maintain throughout a good portion of the song. This is especially rare for them at this stage in their career, as mentioned previously, so it's good to point out.
I've heard some high praise for this band, so I investigated. Defined as "extreme technical death metal", it's pretty extreme, but the technical part I'm not seeing. This band exploits the same noodling that Beneath the Masscre and Origin use. It sounds like they're always using the same little sweeps to do their noodling. Gets really old, really fast.
That said, there are some very cool turn arounds, and sporadic switches in the songs that are pretty nice, and the album contains mostly good riffs. Solid drumming, some pivot roll blast beats, over abundance of sweeps, and occasionally ridiculously fast vocals.
It definitely borrows from Beneath the Massacre, and Origin, I see those as the two biggest influences.
Sweep picking, hammer-ons, and hammer-offs are important tools in Archspire’s kit, and the techniques imbue the music with a spiraling quality. I don’t hear any jazz inflections, polyrhythm or irregular meters, but my sense of timing is awful. The technical tag is well earned, though, by the dedicated instrumentation, rapid shifts between song parts, and non-linear song structures. The songs do have many individual parts and riffs, and so some listeners will experience this as a total riff salad. For anyone who approaches this beast, take solace in the fact that it’s not as unfathomable as Brain Drill or Anomalous. It helps that the album is just 32 minutes long. For me, it ‘took’ a lot quicker than comparable albums from bands like Anomalous, Obscura, et al. I’d also recommend All Shall Align to a tech death newbie before Origin, Obscura, or Ulcerate’s latest efforts, too.
And here’s the part where I willingly but regretfully have to piss in some people’s Cheerios: All Shall Align is a better album than Entity, Omnivium, or The Destroyers of All. It’s better than any other big-name technical or progressive death album I’ve heard this year, and you can see where I’m going with this. Whenever I get so tired of sorting through copycats and D-grade retreads that I’m about to give it up entirely, an album like All Shall Align comes along, and reminds me why I put so much effort into searching for that elusive 10 percent.
Tracklist
01. Deathless Ringing
02. Archspire
03. Ascendance to the Summoning
04. Ghosts of Silent Tongue
05. Ancient of Ancients
06. Rapid Elemental Dissolve
07. All Shall Align
All Shall Align
Reference
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