The Sky, The Earth & All Between is the new album from metalcore band Architects. Having only gotten into them in the past couple of years, I’m not using their older “classic” albums as a frame of reference. So far I’ve only listened to the more recent offerings.
That aside this is a frustrating album. It has some of my favourite songs of the year so far on it that I go back to frequently. If the album had kept with a consistent quality this would be an album of the year contender.
However the album as a complete experience for me stumbles at a couple points. The Linkin Park slower style song Everything Ends drops the energy after a frantic triple header of back to back bangers (Elegy, Whiplash, and Blackhole).
This wouldn’t be a problem but there are some other slower tempo songs that loses the energy later on in the album. I can understand the album needs different style songs to keep the listening experience interesting. Broken Mirror later on is fairly forgettable. I would have preferred just having Chandelier as the slower paced and more emotional album closer.
There are also a few forgettable tracks unfortunately that on repeat listens don’t add to the experience – Evil Eyes, Landmines, Curse.
It felt like they wanted to experiment with this release, which I commend the band for. But it comes off in places as being the track done in the particular style of different bands rather than authentically being Architects.
The production is another area that begins to bug me. This album has a massive sound, all the instruments sound massive. The riffs in particular sound incredible. The harsh vocals are easily some of my favourite in the metalcore genre. The clean vocals have me scratching my head however as they sound slightly over produced and sterile. Having seen the band live where his cleans sound great, I don’t know why they felt the need to “tidy” them on the album.
For an album that you might pick songs off for a playlist, this has some great options. What I feel it doesn’t do is actually work as an album experience.
Top tracks: Blackhole, Whiplash, Seeing Red
