ARCHITECTS — All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us (review)

ARCHITECTS — All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us album cover Album · 2016 · Metalcore Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
Kingcrimsonprog
All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us was the critically acclaimed 2016 album from British Metalcore champions Architects. It is their seventh full-length release, their most successful to date, and their final album to feature Tom Searle before his untimely and tragic passing. It was produced by Fredrik Nordstrom (Arch Enemy, At The Gates, In Flames) and released on Epitaph records.

Architects fans generally fall into three categories; people who only like the incredibly brash and technical Dillinger Escape Plan-influenced early days. People who worship their breakthrough album Hollow Crown above all else, and people who favour their newest three albums. Me, I’m in the latter camp. My favourite of all their albums is Lost Forever // Lost Together.

My second favourite of all their albums is this. All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us is a real achievement. It is arguably their finest and most diverse record to date and when you take personal favouritism out of it, objectively their best. Their electronic side is fleshed out the best here. Sam’s voice is the strongest its ever been here. The balance between their heavy and contemplative sides is at its most harmonious here. Its got their best lyrics to date in my opinion. The production job is utterly perfect, the twinkling electronics float and the crunchy riffs really crunch.

The musical style comes close to Djent a lot at times especially with the balance of progressive metal style clean beautiful vocals, floating electronics and crunchy rhythmic, awkward riffing. They don’t fully immerse themselves in that one style but fans of it would love this album. Its one colour in their bigger picture. They also look in some more commercial directions here too, and luckily they have the tact and taste not to sound like they’re selling out or anything, again its just one part of a bigger whole. Its a very natural evolution of the style they’ve been refining since 2012’s Daybreaker.

Highlights include the punishing opener ‘Nihilist’ (which is the sort-of title track), as well as the rhythmic single ‘A Match Made In Heaven’ and the touching Anathema-esque closer ‘Memento Mori.’ It fittingly tells us to be mindful of death.

Overall; this is a stunning, tasteful, diverse and beautiful album that lives in a mathy, techy, heavy world too. It is expertly written, played, produced and has some fantastic lyrics. Its one of the band’s better if not best albums and if you like the band you’d be mad to miss it (unless you really only like the earliest stuff only). If you like bands like Tesseract, Circles or Monuments I’d also highly recommend this one to you to try.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

A Sonication Technical Death Metal
OBSCURA
Buy this album from MMA partners
Hin helga kvöl Atmospheric Sludge Metal
SÓLSTAFIR
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Cycles of Suffering Black Metal
BURIAL OATH
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Suns of Perdition - Chapter IV: To Shadow Zion Black Metal
PANZERFAUST
Buy this album from MMA partners
Facilis Descensus Averno Death Metal
SAEVUS FINIS
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

DAWN OF REVENGE - Sanctuary [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 6 days ago
DAWN OF REVENGE - Farewell [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 6 days ago
DAWN OF REVENGE - Curtain of Death - [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 6 days ago
DAWN OF REVENGE - Vengeance [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 6 days ago
DAWN OF REVENGE - I Need You [official music video]
DAWN OF REVENGE
Bosh66· 6 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed