Architects – Our Gods Have Abandoned Us

Political metallers reach new heights...

Architects’ sixth album, 2014s ‘Lost Forever // Lost Together’, booted them firmly into UK metal’s upper echelons. Now on album number seven, the Brighton juggernauts have well and truly hit their stride. ‘All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us’ isn’t a sonic leap into new pastures, rather it’s the sound of a band nailing their sound and operating at the very top of their game. In a genre as crowded as metalcore, Architects have managed to craft a sound that’s instantly and recognisably Architects.

These songs take place before a rich tech-metal tapestry that’s unrelentingly brutal, yet littered with expansive, unsettling atmospherics. ‘A Match Made In Heaven’, now easily the most stunning track in the band’s arsenal, comes lunging out of the speakers packing a punch that’s as exhilarating as it is vicious. Elsewhere the down-tuned riffs and emphatic bounce of ‘Downfall’ and ‘Gravity’ segue effortlessly into anthemic choruses.

Architects are a political bunch. All of them are vegan, they’ve campaigned for PETA and past albums have focused furiously on war, whale hunting and environmental destruction. Similarly, ‘All Our Gods’ burns with a misanthropic rage and discontent, a rumination on the end of days. Vocalist Sam Carter is foaming at the mouth and his prognosis of the world is bleak. "Look at the fucking mess we’ve made / We sold our souls but couldn’t find salvation,” he taunts on suitably apocalyptic opener ‘Nihilist’. "What's it going to take to get us to stand up?” bawls the chorus of ‘Downfall’, while on ‘Deathwish’, Carter’s throat-stripping roar is on blistering form: “We’ve reached the point of no return / Maybe we just want to watch the world burn.”

But the band save their biggest trick ‘til last. Closer ‘Momento Mori’ is an eight-minute soundscape and a sprawling example of kitchen sink ambition. It’s a huge, brilliantly crafted and slow-burning journey that rises and plunges through echoing spaces and buzzing electronics before building to a crushing apex. Architects have surpassed everything else in their catalogue so far. ‘Lost Forever // Lost Together’ bought them a seat at UK metal’s top table, but ‘All Our Gods’ might just put them at the head of it.

8/10

Words: Dannii Leivers

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