Review: Architects 'For Those That Wish to Exist'
When you dive into the story behind Architects discography, you will find it's a rather rich and intense one that crosses the themes of adversity, recovery, and overall defeating the odds of those challenges, all within the stretch of eight successful studio albums. It's no wonder that when you place this band in the topic of conversation in the metalcore scene, they are always at the top of the scene list. Now the band has come with yet their ninth heavy-hitter of an album, For Those Who Wish To Exist which dropped today via Epitaph Records.
While the band has always crafted the best of the best when it comes to full-length endeavors, the real question that stood here was if Architects could top what they have already established themselves in terms of original sound and quality. That's often tough to do when you're following up such heavy melodic releases such as Holy Hell. Surprisingly enough, However, Architects confidently does this and more on their latest album release.
Upon the first listen, For Those Who Wish To Exist continues to bring about the sound textures that made Holy Hell so unique and special in the first place. However, on the next listen, you find there is so much more to this release than these sound attributes. Saying this, Architects establishes a sound on this record that is sharp, arena-sized, and massive, which is something that they have always been but are now being able to boldly show it on a vaster and kaleidoscopic scale.
Examples to attest to this are main attractions such as "Discourse is Dead," which flawlessly shows off how much time and dedication they took to craft such beautiful monumental sounds and otherworldly elements orchestrated into one track. Other gargantuan experiences such as "An Ordinary Extinction" are gorgeously heavy and taps into classic territories that we are used to hearing the metalcore heavyweights in the industry. "Impermanence" is another monster of a track featuring Winston McCall of Parkway Drive, but a very welcomed one. Though many of the star-studded moments on this album are impressively imposing, it's worth noting that some of the softer tracks are just as gorgeous as well.
For Those That Wish To Exist has risen another bar yet again for the new year in the metalcore scene, something they always manage to do with all of their releases with little to no surprise. While sonically this brings up some old sound territories from 2018's Holy Hell, it over embellishes and develops them beautifully, creating an unblemished, colossal, concert-sized extension to what Holy Hell's towering, solemn, melodic release introduced to us. For fans old and new, this is an album that will not disappoint. For fans that are into genres of metalcore, electronic, a heavy dose of atmospheric symphonic elements, sprinkled with some orchestrated bliss, this is the February release for you.