Asphyxium Zine: Full Length Review: Archspire "Bleed the Future" (Season Of Mist) by Dave Wolff

Band: Archspire

Location: Vancouver, British Columbia

Country: Canada

Genre: Technical death metal

Full length: Bleed the Future

Format: Digital, CD, vinyl, black vinyl, green marbled vinyl

Label: Season Of Mist

Release date: October 29, 2021

What is the frequency with which the term “world's fastest band” has been used to describe a band? I’m unable to provide an answer but Archspire is one of the worthiest contenders for that title. "Bleed the Future" is sufficiently explosive to leave Cryptopsy and Cattle Decapitation at the starting line. With the release of "Scum", a band called Napalm Death revolutionized extreme music, after which an endless succession of bands continued to push things further in noticeable increments. This band has been recording professionally since 2010 and has worked overtime to push it further than any technical death metal band has up to now.

The earliest material of Archspire, while seemingly fragmented and without direction, had the potential to become the sonic juggernaut it's on their way to becoming. Accelerated beyond human expectation, the percussion was accompanied by expert classically learned scales, mellifluous bass lines, and vocals as precise as they were ferocious. When resourceful songwriting and atmospheric passages surface recurrently without overstaying their welcome, what you have is likely to be the next pinnacle in death metal's evolution.

Over the years, Archspire has continued to preserve the musical foundations they have redesigned from album to album. Enhancing speed and mathematical precision, they enhanced every other aspect of their sound. Their classical elements grew more pronounced, paying more attention to the crunch and sweep picking added to the songwriting, their atmospheric sections became more complex, and their vocals adopted a meticulous cadence with as much in common with hip hop as with technical death metal.

“Bleed the Future” continues Archspire’s momentum, maximizing its proficiency to an unsparing, nearly overwhelming level. Whether it’s too excessive rests with how much of a proponent of technical DM one is. Until now, reactions have been not exactly been polarized but clearly mixed. In spite of this, this album is much lauded as the band stuck to their guns and intensified their vision even beyond their last album“Relentless Mutation” (2017), presenting everything in a more cohesive and less fragmented manner.

A tighter interaction between the band's technical presence and classical elements results in a more nuanced recording. In fact all the characteristics they’ve honed from the beginning operate as pieces of a completed puzzle depicting colossal scenery. Without doing anything other than perfecting what has already been established, Archspire naturally gravitates toward progressive death metal and ambient death metal. By maximizing what they have at their disposal, they've been able to successfully expand their borders.

Archspire is not only growing, they are blossoming into something magnificent and terrifying all at once. I vehemently recommend checking “Bleed the Future” out at least once. –Dave Wolff

Lineup:

Oliver Rae Aleron: Vocals

Dean Lamb: Guitars

Tobi Morelli: Guitars

Jared Smith: Bass

Spencer Prewett: Drums

Track list:

1. Drone Corpse Aviator

2. Golden Mouth of Ruin

3. Abandon the Linear

4. Bleed the Future

5. Drain of Incarnation