Architects - All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us (2016)^{Release ID: 3215}

The final part of both Architects' glorious trio of albums and the era of Tom Searle is honestly one of the most emotional metalcore albums I've heard, and the first time I've heard it was when I was letting go of something that has shaped things up for me in the past, that being my earlier love for heavy/power metal after I left The Guardians, though I've been enjoying a few more Guardians bands recently. The most emotional impact comes from the 8-minute finale, which we'll get to later on.

At this point, Architects has fully redeemed themselves after the poor Hollow Crown (still enjoyable by others) and the unloved Here and Now. The excellent Daybreaker and the incredible Lost Forever Lost Together are just what we need in the metalcore realms! And with All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us, the distant past remains the past.

Opening things up hard and heavy is "Nihilist" with its immediate intensity. It's a perfect blend of brutality and melody! The next track "Deathwish" continues that glory with the Meshuggah-infused technical djent-core that spreads through a lot of the album. Sam Carter shouts an anthemic chorus for the stadium masses. The drumming gets more active in "Phantom Fear". The only slight problem is when the riffing gets a bit repetitive. Still it's made up for by the lyrics of humanity's futility, "No love, no empathy, our fellow man is now our enemy". Next up, "Downfall" has complex riffing rhythms, though in more of the "groove" kind of Lamb of God. Still it's quite djenty and the band can break the rules of conventionality and make their own.

"Gone With the Wind" is not related to the movie ("Frankly, my dear, I don't give a d*mn"), but with lyrics like "Hope is a prison", the theme of humanity's futility is maintained as hope is deemed, well, hopeless. "The Empty Hourglass" is never empty, heavily diverse with what to expect from ERRA, The Ghost Inside, Motionless in White, and even Ne Obliviscaris. "A Match Made in Heaven" attacks with some breakdowns, though it might end up being slightly, JUST slightly, draggy. Then "Gravity" pulls you through like a black hole, sounding like a more spacey atmospheric Hatebreed.

Noise fills your ears in "All Love Is Lost", while still having dark galactic atmosphere. "From the Wilderness" sounds nicely like August Burns Red with some Godflesh-infused atmosphere. Then at long last, we come to Architect's longest song and one of the most heartful tear-shedding tracks in all of metalcore, "Memento Mori". This astonishing epic, along with the rest of this album, was written, recorded, and released in the last months of the life of Tom Searle, and the lyrics include a couple recorded quotes from Alan Watts that perfectly do justice to the inevitable transcendence into infinite darkness that awaited him. Absolutely amazing, emotional, and deserving to be heard beyond the universe. RIP this amazing legend... My mind is blown by such great remembrance for the memory of a talented young man gone too soon. If one day, I end up passing too, this would be my funeral song. The power of the music and lyrics can be absolutely gripping. In fact, the lyrics and melody (specifically at the 4-minute mark) is revisited in "Death is Not Defeat", the opener of their next album and first without Tom. If you end up on the brink of death with no way out, just let it be. It is your fate. An inspirational message from this glorious epic to end this fascinating album.

As awesome as many metalcore bands are to me, Architects stands out with all of its heartful emotion in All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us. Clearly, they deserve to be on top with Meshuggah, Converge, and TDEP. And all their mistakes from the past are left in the forgotten void. H*ll yeah! RIP Tom Searle. Memento Mori, be mindful of death....

Favorites: "Nihilist", "Deathwish", "Downfall", "The Empty Hourglass", "Gravity", "Memento Mori"