As much as I have been a huge fan of metalcore since the early noughties glory days, Architects are a band that has somehow largely passed me by. Their early rhythmically complex math metal days don’t really appeal to me (or at least didn’t back then). So I was pretty much an Architects n00b. However, you don’t have to know Architects very well to see the huge influence they have had on the scene – with enough rip off bands to create a whole ‘Architects-core’ sub genre. Now they hit us with their new album For Those That Wish To Exist.
Gone are the intricate days of old, and in come the massive stadium anthems. There is nothing hiding away in this album, it has clearly been written with large arenas in mind. Architects have risen to be one of the premium bands in the UK metal scene, so no reason why these tracks won’t be right at home there. There are guest appearances from Winston McCall (Parkway Drive) and Simon Neil (Biffy Clyro) on the album. Both Parkway Drive and Biffy Clyro have notably changed their sound from heavier, complex origins to more straight forward ‘arena friendly’ style. So I guess their inclusion here makes perfect sense.
All that is wonderful and all, but it doesn’t answer the question; is this album actually any good? The thematics are very doom and gloom – concentrating on the impact humanity is having on the destruction of the planet. There are straight up heavy tracks in Animals and Black Lungs – both of which are excellent. Whilst Flight Without Feathers and Little Wonder (ft. Royal Blood‘s Mike Kerr) sound like Pendulum have snuck a couple of tracks onto the album. Not necessarily a bad thing (I am a huge Pendulum fan after all), just not quite what I was expecting.
It’s interesting to note, Goliath – which features Simon Neil‘s guest appearance, has a straight up Gojira inspired riff, and gives us some of that old Biffy chaos for a brief moment. There are however a few tracks that really just sound the same. Structurally they are extremely similar, and is really hard pick them out from each other from memory.
If you are expecting a metalcore album, then you are going to be disappointed. This project is significantly larger in its aspiration, favours stadium filling EDM over bone crushing riffs, and seeks to surround you in a wall of soundscapes and complex layering (can we call it EDMcore?). Overall through, at almost an hour, For Those That Wish To Exist is definitely too long. I don’t believe this album was meant to be a ‘sell out’ style of radio friendly material – clearly they are letting their creativity flow. It just overall gets in the way of this really being a great album.
Score: 6/10
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