Album Review: Archspire – The Lucid Collective

Archspire [Canada]
The Lucid Collective
2014
Full Length
Season of Mist
Technical Death Metal

After the last Archspire album in 2011, All Shall Align, which left a deep impression on me, this Canadian outfit easily became one of my favourite technical death metal acts. The band’s sophomore album, The Lucid Collective, therefore was probably the most anticipated technical death metal release for me this year so far, and looking at the beautiful, sci-fi-inspired artwork of death and destruction, Archspire‘s follow up to All Shall Align certainly looks promising so far.

All Shall Align already showed fans of tech-death what Archspire was capable of, and it is rather hard to believe that the band is able to top what was already presented on their debut, but the band easily goes on to show how they have grown as masters of crushing intensity and technical complexity on The Lucid Collective. Right from the get-go with Lucid Collective Somnambulation, the band engages in some beautiful technical wankery, and the fusion of the relentless death metal and that slight sense of melody in the leads of Tobi Morelli and Dean Lamb quickly reminds one of the musical style of bands such as Necrophagist, Spawn of Possession or Origin. Moments on songs like Scream Feeding even see the band bringing in some heavy Decapitated or Hour of Penance influences.

One thing that made The Lucid Collective such a powerful album is also in the production quality of the album, allowing for each of the band members to really shine and show off their technical abilities. Songs such as Seven Crowns and the Oblivion Chain especially see the band taking full advantage of the polished production, and in the 1-minute mark one is hit by a wall of sound, literally sending shockwaves through the listener as the riff hits the listener.

The entire album is fast. Extremely fast, and the band doesn’t care if you can catch up with them or not. Blink and you will miss the brilliance that the band has incorporated into their music on the album, but fret not as such moments of ingenuity and intensity are aplenty throughout the album, with the main spotlight being on Spencer Prewett’s quick and precise drum work. While the year has been adorned with many excellent technical death metal albums thus far, Archspire‘s definitely takes the cake for being the heaviest, the most intense and the fastest one.

[xrr rating=5/5]

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Season of Mist