Arsis – Starve For The Devil

Label: Nuclear Blast

I’m not quite sure what happened to Arsis in between this album and their last, “We are the Nightmare” (described to me by one friend as “the gay Necrophagist”). While Arsis always were definitely firmly in the realm of Melodic death metal before (with “We are the Nightmare” taking their sound to new impressive heights of technicality, and a “Celebration of Guilt” being something of a lost gem of melodeath), now it seems they have spent too much time listening to Steel Panther and decided that some kind of 80’s cheese rock/technical death metal hybrid is the way to go. A big risk, which could have been awesome, but also could have been absolutely terrible, so I guess it’s a slight surprise that this CD is just “ok”.

I feel kina crappy for ragging on Arsis for essentially just trying something new, but this album just isn’t that grabbing, and they did the whole straight Melodeath shiztic much better. It has it’s moments, “The Ten of Swords” and “Closer To The Cold” are both pretty damn decent, but both of these are closer to the original Arsis. The more rocky stuff often just ends up sounding like a very confused Megadeth, and hence not that original.

Compared to previous efforts, the (genuinely impressive) guitar work has been reigned back a tad, and the vocals are still extremely generic and pretty much un-noticeable most of the time. Speed has also been reigned back to often sit at a mid tempo beat (probably as a result of trying to sound more “rocky”). When Melodeath gets even lighter, but still tries to cling to being “death metal”, the result, as Arsis have shown, is something that ultimately sounds rather substanceless and campy.

Not sure how this will be received. Maybe many people will enjoy the fusion, but ultimately, seeing as how most metal fans hate change, this foray into lighter territory will more likely face a backlash from stubborn death metal fans who see any kind of trying something new as “selling out”. It’s a shame that Arsis will probably end up punished for trying something new, and it’s also a shame that this album wasn’t all that good.

Eyelicker

6/10

Also, this cringe worthy video accompanying the opener didn’t do much to help my opinion:

This video makes me uncomfortable in the same way that I imagine seeing my parents fuck would.