Kingcrimsonprog Architect’s third studio album, 2009’s Hollow Crown, sits at an unusual crossroads in the band’s career and yet has the honour of being the breakthrough gateway through which the band gained a large share of its fanbase.

The album is largely a departure from their heavier, more technical records, which the band have since described as ‘Dillinger Escape Plan Worship Records,’ and yet is nowhere near as accessible as the album which followed it, 2011’s The Hear And Now.

Hollow Crown walks the path between both style, featuring clean vocals prominently, few blasts and relatively straightforward songwriting when compared to the older albums, yet there are still a fair number of complex and intricate sections, plenty of very harsh vocals and a much more metal guitar tone than the album which followed it. Hollow Crown is in fact constantly winning praise for its guitar tone, which has been described as perfect on numerous occasions.

The album is of a consistent quality; there is no filler and no weak tracks to spoil the experience. My personal favourite tracks are ‘Follow The Water,’ and ‘Every Last Breath,’ but you can’t really go wrong with any of them.

Overall, Hollow Crown is a good album and even if you liked their old stuff this shouldn’t be too commercial for your tastes and conversely, if you liked their new album but hate mathcore and extreme metal, Hollow Crown shouldn’t be too far out or too extreme for your tastes.

DeathOfSeasons What is England's problem? Any time a slightly decent band emerges from there their media will hype them as the greatest thing since sliced bread. You've got Bring Me the Horizon, Lostprophets, Gallows and now Architects, who specialise in standard Metalcore mixed with Gallows aggression and some nice little tech bits similar to those of Dillinger Escape Plan that last for roughly twenty seconds before returning to the standard Metalcore structure. Is it anything amazing? No, not really, August Burns Red have been doing the technical Metalcore thing for years now. So what's so good about Architects then? After all, they are the current Metalcore band of the moment.

Well when Hollow Crown begins you could be forgiven for thinking the hype is deserved. The album begins with "Early Grave", which begins with a massive riff and aggressive screams, before progressing with Meshuggah-lite parts and gang vocals! However, with Architects all good things must come to and end, and "Early Grave" is no exception. After repeating the same structure a few times the clean vocals come in and that's exactly where the song falls completely falls apart. To be blunt Sam Carter has a horrible singing voice, and it's painfully obvious. Just five seconds ago he was tearing up his vocals chords with his screams, and then he's singing like he's fronting some local Pop Punk band. Well maybe the next song will fair better.

It doesn't. On "Dethroned" onwards, Architects turn into some Dillinger Escape Plan worship band with a bunch of Poison the Well influence. Things pick up on "Numbers Count for Nothing", with some excellent drumming, though the vocals only continue to get worse and the multiple breakdowns really bring the song down towards the end. "Follow the Water" sounds exactly like something taken from obZen by Meshuggah with added -core vocals. After the first four tracks the album goes into auto-pilot, recycling the different sides of Architects over and over again for the last thirty minutes of the album.

For a band who are apparently taking Metalcore into unexplored territory with their "Progressive nature", Architects sure do repeat themselves. A lot. Let me breakdown almost every song for you: Opening slightly technical riffing followed by a faster riff and drumming. Then you repeat the first riff, throw in a breakdown and then you get a quick breather from the "intensity" followed by the melodic part complete with clean vocals. Now this happens on the majority of the tracks here and almost all of the riffs with the exception of those found in "Early Grave" are completely interchangeable. The only variation will be the lack of clean vocals in a track or a Groove Metal based part popping up half way through a song.

Not all is bad though. Sam Carter's screams bear a lot in common with those of Frank Carter for the first few tracks, and the drumming can be quite varied at times, which goes well with some of the few excellent riffs here.

But in the long run Architects are just yet another in a long line of Metalcore and Deathcore bands who have been hyped as the next big thing, despite doing nothing to really separate them from the rest of the Metalcore pack. You want progressive and technical Metalcore? Go listen to Reflux, a band who Architects desperately want to be.

Download: Early Grave

For fans of: Reflux, Poison the Well

(Originally written for Rate Your Music)