Architects - For Those That Wish to Exist

The Guardian 0

(Epitaph)
Cobweb-blasting singing, brain-invading melodies and skin-scouring riffs offer no relief from this wrestling match with impending disaster

Climate crisis rock hasn’t exactly taken off in recent years. Mainstream music’s reliance on easily digestible emotional journeying grates awkwardly against the catharsis-vacuum that is the Earth’s current trajectory. Those who have tackled the topic have often taken circuitous routes – delegating to experts (the 1975 enlisted Greta Thunberg); shockingly reimagining the process as a triumph of malevolence (Anohni, Grimes) – but stalwart Brighton metallers Architects plump for a straightforward take on their ninth album, an hour-long wrestling match with impending doom and disaster.

Yet no matter the framing device – histrionic hardcore, glitchy electronica, dreamy balladeering – the doom comes out on top. All the cobweb-blasting screaming, brain-invading melodies and skin-scouring riffs provide none of their customary release when juxtaposed with the needling, inescapable horror of the lyrics; the spiralling, math-rock style detailing elsewhere only heightens the tension. The only thing that lightens the load is the occasional burst of sixth-form-poetry melodrama (see: Black Lungs, Animals).