Architects - "The Sky, The Earth & All Between"

A review that almost didn't happen

Architects are a British Progressive Metalcore group who, historically, have displayed mastery in creating songs which are both melodic and seriously aggressive. That mastery remains one of their major draws, but the group has changed a bit since their last release, 2022’s The Classic Symptoms of a Broken Spirit, and it’s audible pretty quickly into this new album.

The band’s lineup had been stable for a while, releasing three albums as a five-piece with lead guitarist Josh Middleton, who joined the band about a year after Tom Searle’s tragic death. This left rhythm guitarist Adam Christianson to step up and play both lead and rhythm.

This is the same Adam Christianson who embroiled the band in turmoil after “accidentally” retweeting professional asshole Tim Pool (who was, in turn, responding to assholey comments made in a video by MMA star Sean Strickland). Ostensibly, Christianson had resonated with the “fuck Trudeau” sentiment in the video and failed to take into account the framing context of ‘being gay is weakness and allowing your child to be gay is weakness’.¹ Christianson, and the band as a whole, apologized. Vocalist Sam Carter, despite admitting he had wanted to kick Christianson out for a little bit there, addressed an audience in Paris, stating “No one on this stage judges anybody for their gender, their race, and whoever they are in love with. We never have, we never will.”

And it’s important to note that drummer Dan Searle, the only founding member remaining, was also displeased and skeptical.

So I didn’t blacklist them. They didn’t toss Christianson on his ass, so I can only assume that the band talked it out and gave him grace. I can only hope that none of us regret it later.

Now, though, only a little over a year after the incident, we have the band’s 11th studio album, and its change in direction, to consider.

I stated earlier that the change in sound was pretty noticeable early on — and I want to caveat, briefly, that my experience with the band encompasses only their last two albums, really; I’ve only heard a few songs from before 2021’s For Those That Wish to Exist. Still, nothing I’ve heard previously includes death growls and blast beats, which surface only a little over a minute into opening track “Elegy”, and recur throughout the majority of The Sky, The Earth & All Between.

Now, if you’re reading this and thinking, ‘But Mr Versatone, didn’t you say just a minute ago that one of the core elements of their music is that it’s ‘seriously aggressive’?, I have to confirm that, yes, I did state exactly that in the intro to this review. However, for those not familiar with various metal genres, tropes, and styles of harsh vocals, there’s actually a lot of nuance in how all of that is composed and delivered.

See, Metalcore acts typically use a very screamy approach to their heaviest bits. High-pitched, high energy, similar to what the harshest Emo bands in the aughts sounded like. Think The Used, Hawthorne Heights, or Taking Back Sunday, for example; except harder. More intense.

While The Sky, The Earth & All Between remains primarily a Metalcore album, many of the harsh techniques employed fall more in line with Death and Deathcore — that is, low-pitched, high energy, generally.²³

Other critics frequently label Architects as Alt Metal. I don’t see it. An argument for applying Nu Metal, maybe, but this doesn’t line up with Alt; the fact that “Everything Ends” sounds like a radio-ready Linkin Park song does not make either of those labels apply to the album at-large. That would be misleading. Given what I’ve discussed already, I’m personally classifying this as Metalcore and Extreme Metal.⁴

The album has definitely grown on me across my three or four listens, in spite of its aggressive composition and short track lengths. “Elegy”, “Whiplash”, and “Brain Dead” are bangers. That last has a satisfying drop into a Groove/Doom-like section near its end which reminds me strongly of the transition in Reveille’s “Bleed the Sky”. Except it’s longer and doesn’t have the rap section.

“Whiplash” lives up to its name by ending with a soundbyte of Chef Gordon Ramsay.

The most accessible songs are “Everything Ends”, “Judgement Day” (featuring Amira Elfeky), “Broken Mirror”, and closing track “Chandelier”, but only the first is completely devoid of harsh vocals. To be fair, the harsh vocals in “Chandelier” come right at the end and only last about five seconds.

At large, the album is better than expected, and better than I gave it credit for on my first listen, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as their last two outings. The mix of contrasting harsh styles is, ultimately, kind of refreshing. The band does occasionally lose sight of their melodicism (as on “Seeing Red”, which was the album’s lead single). But the album is good. I’m not mad about giving them a second chance.

Rating: Green

1. Christianson’s verbatim response indicated it was a complete accident:

"Shit! That retweet was a total accident!! I don't endorse anything that guy says other than fuck Trudeau. Sorry for the panic everyone! Complete all-thumbs moment.”

And I was never really on Twitter, but I sincerely doubt that reposting was a single-click action that you could just hit and never notice.

At least say you were drunk.

2. If you want low energy, that tends to happen in Death-Doom or Black.

3. Please understand that these are largely generalized statements based on my experience with various genres. For some of these, that experience is limited, as my preferences rarely overlap into the more extreme metal genres. If anybody more familiar with those genres, such as The Long Listen’s Cole Bratcher, has a better explanation or categorization method, I’d likely take their experience over my own.

4. This is the broad label which encompasses Death, Black, and more. Those Death influences are big, but not specific enough to invoke that label’s usage.