Starve For The Devil

Arsis' We are the Nightmare was a devilish little technical death metal album with some noisy, messy drums and songwriter/guitarist James Malone's rekindled sense of melody amidst some unnecessarily showy sweep picking. Eager anticipation of Malone's progression, and Arsis' for that matter, was a given.The new decade brings us Starve for the Devil, and it's safe to say no one saw this coming. Gone is the ADD-infused percussionist of the past, and returning to the fold is original skin-man Mike Van Dyne, who injects the album with much-needed energy through his combination of heavy pounding beats, controlled restraint, and signature double-bass drum barrages. And the album's production has eschewed Nightmare's paper-thin veneer for every ounce of crunch the band's poor amps could muster.More surprisingly, the band has shifted gears and styles almost entirely. Song titles like "Forced to Rock" and "Half Past Corpse O' Clock" suggest tongue-in-rotted-cheek extreme metal cheesiness, ranging somewhere between the idiocy of Children of Bodom and the puzzling last Carcass album, Swansong. The music is now a streamlined version of heavy power metal influenced thrash. All attempts at masturbatory technical death have been wiped aside. Blast beats are few, and sweep picking solos are even rarer. Dear God, how many times must they say "It's time to rock!" or the equivalent?Perhaps Arsis finally decided to respond to the fan backlash, the angry voices who missed the band's original thrash-death-black metal hybrid of yore, increasingly disillusioned with the direction of mindless complexity bordering on un-musicality their releases were taking. "Beyond Forlorn" is for those fans. So is "Closer to Cold," with its melodic tremolo picking and mournful outro, and so is ferocious closer "Sable Rising."So it's still not their masterful debut, A Celebration of Guilt, by any stretch. It's starting to look like nothing ever will be.

The first track resurrects some absolutely brilliant 80's moments with a fantastically hilarious "In the name of Satan, we are FORCED TO ROCK!" And the energy that cannot be described as anything other than frenetic continues for ten more punishing tracks.In terms of production quality, this album is leap years ahead of "We are the nightmare," with the ultra-thin drum machine sounding kit tossed out for something much more appropriate and aggressive. The most surprising thing is that in many places I can actually hear the bass guitar playing--and its gorgeous!While I absolutely love every last note, while I love how ruthlessly this band plays... every successive release from Arsis has been moving a more and more powermetal direction (sans vocals) that while technically brilliant... does not translate to any real raw emotion. I will be so direct as to say that they traded "evil" for melody.Sometimes they unite: "Beyond Forlorn" has a progressive breakdown for about 4 bars that is surprising and brilliant. And the occult-themed "The Ten of Swords" is downright Slayer-like in its ability to trash without a conscience--and the breakdown here reminds me of some of the work from DT's "The Gallery."While I'm still not 100% in love with the new direction from Arsis, one thing that I cannot say is that they aren't being original. No other band sounds like this, and though their first two albums were pure "At the Gates" worship (and I miss that) the last two releases have really seen the band become something completely of their own making. You can't compare them to ATG anymore, the styles are completely different--and ATG never lost the "from hell" feel that I feel Arsis has done of late.Though I really don't want to give this album 5 stars, I realize that the differences I have are due to style and not to substance: This album is unique, manages to continuously innovate, and though not by any means as dark as the first two albums--blends all the best elements of their early work with the brilliant shredding of "We Are the Nightmare." If you skipped or were disappointed by the last album, don't do it this time, you will be missing out--and the polish is back!

Was a gift for son in law and enjoys it

At the store, the album cover had a sticker billing this as melodic death metal. I disagree with that notion. Although this band does infuse some melody into the blistering guitar work, I feel this music is more in the realm of technical death metal and/or thrash death.I'm not saying this is a bad or disappointing album. Quite the contrary. Arsis manages to deliver a truly Americanized sense of whatever style of death metal they choose to play, and do it well. The drum work is much more intense than your typical melodic death metal band and the guitars are epic and extremely thrashy.I'm going to commit the cardinal sin here and compare these guys to Arch Enemy and The Absence. Musically, these three bands sound very similar. Both AE and The Absence are more melodically involved, but still thrashy. Both have better vocalists.That is my only beef with this album, and it is a major one. Would it kill this guy to belt out more varied tones other than his continuous raspy drawl? I must admit that I like bands with deeper, more crushing vocals. Remove the vocals from Starve for the Devil and this is a solid 5-star release even if it is purely instrumental. I know this vocal style is part of what makes Arsis, but I'm not reviewing this album as Arsis albums go, but as death metal albums go. For the monotonous rasp, I have to dock this thing almost a full point. Starve for the Devil corrals 4.0/5 stars.