Architects’ seventh album, All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us, arrived in 2016 and marks a high point in the trajectory of the Brighton band. Written in large part by guitarist Tom Searle, then gravely ill, it carries an intensity and a darkness that take on, in hindsight, a particular resonance. The record strikes with its lucid anger at a world that seems to be running toward its own ruin, a theme that runs through every song.
An anger that makes no concessions
Rarely have Architects sounded this sharp. The riffs bite, the breakdowns crush, and Sam Carter’s voice moves from screaming to more melodic lines with impressive ease. The lyrics condemn inaction in the face of ecological and moral crises without ever slipping into preaching: the fury is fed by a sincere despair that lends the message a gravity rare in mainstream metalcore.
The balance of force and melody
What sets the record apart is its ability to marry brutality with a sense of melody. The choruses rise, majestic, above the surges of guitar, and the atmospheric arrangements bring a cinematic depth. This art of contrast, between crushing heaviness and luminous flights, would become a reference for a whole wing of modern metalcore.
A record laden with history
It is impossible to hear this album without thinking of the context of its making. Tom Searle’s illness hangs over every note, turning certain lyrics into almost prophetic meditations on mortality and the end of illusions. That dimension gives the record an added emotion, without the band ever seeking to exploit it. Here and there one may regret a certain uniformity in the writing, a few tracks melting into a compact mass. But the overall impact remains considerable, so unflagging are the energy and conviction.
All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us stands as an essential step in Architects’ maturation, a powerful, dark and deeply inhabited record. It heralds the stature the band would reach and remains, for many, one of the peaks of a British metalcore then at the height of its art. A landmark work, at once furious and strangely beautiful.
