Architect Of Disease
Open The Hearts
End
Of Time Records
2013
Poland's
lords of metallic oppression, Architect Of Disease, deliver an album of
twisted and deathly obscurity with their debut. After a shrill
initial squeal on Leviathan Prayer we are immediately struck by
darkened metallic riffs and dry, gruff vocals that arc into a bit of
epic pacing and arcane atmosphere. The track falls somewhere
between Astral Sleep era Tiamat and Blood Ritual era Samael. And
you will find this parallel exists on all the remaining tracks as well.
Anyways, the song drifts into vistas of openly flowing guitars
and plodding riffs. Bones Regine however kicks it into high gear
with intense and frantic riffs that bring on a sense of hysteria before
dropping into a slower, marching groove. The intensity picks up
once again only to increase the melodic accents at the same time.
At the 1:34 mark I hear faint echoes of Darkthrone's A Blaze
album, but with a thicker, more rough style. The guitar soloing
and the midtempo flow of the riffs seems to hypnotize me. The
opening passages of Blaze Of Havoc brings to mind Twin Obscenity for
some reason. It's the snowy, forested imagery that I draw the
comparison from. The black n roll riff that ushers in the second
portion of the song relinquishes its control to a fast, melodic section
and a blasting, chaotic explosion. A beefy, bass driven riff
hammers away at you on Without Divine Intervention. Shades of
Katatonia style riffage are melded to a thicker, more Samael-esque song
style before being overtaken by quick death metal-ish blasts. A
more menacing and in-your-face set of riffs confront your ears as
Rejection Of The World begins. After lightning intense riff
flurries you are swallowed by an army of midtempo crushers and
eruptions of aggression. The final, 15-minute song, Devour The
Sun drags and scrapes out meaty riffs and melodic embellishments on to
lapse into more epic feeling segments that loosely remind me of Rotting
Christ's early work. Architect Of Disease is a diverse and varied
band that bring many images of important underground entities without
making me feel like I am listening to, nor directly referencing them.
Open The Hearts captures my attention and never loosens its grasp
despite giving nods to ancient gods. I feel like these influences
are modernized, buried and resurrected into something completely new.
Definitely spend some time with Architect Of Disease if you value
alone time with quality music.