ARCHSPIRE - The Lucid Collective

This will be a hard review to write, but not nearly as hard as this album must have been to compose. In order to be able to do the record any justice with mere words, I would need a degree in music theory from Julliard as well as a Nobel Prize for literature - along with a total suspension of disbelief on the behalf of my readership. Readers beware. Not a word that is to follow even comes close to hyperbole!
The Lucid Collective may be the single greatest feat of tech death ever committed to binary code. I urge all of you elitist, old school nostalgia filled, Morbid Angel fellating, IDMNs out there to go all kinds of nuts and bananas in the comments section with your customary knee jerk reaction, troglodyte stream of near consciousness rambling ravings- because not even a collective expression of your most lucid and deeply emotionally seated opinions can change this fact in the slightest.

This album DE-EXPLETIVE INFIX-STROYS! First of all, drummer Spencer Prewett slays his kit like he was the bastard love child of Jon Longstreth and Chris Pennie- raised on a steady diet of amphetamines and daily Iron Man races. His blasts are as varied as the colours of the rainbow, his technique as precise as laser eye surgery and his level of creativity higher than that of the entire city of Umeå, Sweden, during an extended acid binge. All of this performed at speeds that would have Dave Witte throw in his sweat drenched towel and finally realise the dream of starting a grind themed micro brewery.
The dual, god knows how many fucking strings, guitar assault can not be described without resorting to the sort of lingo understood only by those who carry a full set of emergency replacement strings with them at all times and could compose deeply meaningful haikus- using nothing but advanced guitar terminology- at the drop of a plectrum.
The vocals are like the rapid fire, growling oral rumbles of Bigfoot undergoing shock treatment of the nads, and fret not bass aficionados, because low end provider Jaron Evil certainly doesn’t.

The greatest miracle with this album, however, is not how in the deepest bloody pits of hell it came to be so expertly wrought and flawlessly performed, but how in the name of the bastard Jesus they were able to assemble such a troop of supremely skilled musicians without resorting to some sort of Canada’s Got All the Talent reality TV show, drawing from a pool of every music conservatory student graduated in the country since the heyday of the tech death era.
The godlike riffage swirls like Eve Mendes’ honey scented bathwater down the drain of a solid gold tub and the heavenly melodies stop on a bitcoin, only to snap back in a split second into some silken solos born on the back of warp speed rhythms that change directions faster than a ping pong ball caught inside a high end washing machine set to the spin cycle.
Shortly put, The Lucid Collective constitutes the happiest marriage of unadulterated speed with truly beautiful songwriting ability this writer’s ever heard- both in and outside of his wildest dreams.
This rating goes up to 11. [Season Of Mist]
- Bogi Bjarnason
More Bogi over at Eddies in the Tide of Regret.