Review by Xephyr for Unleash the Archers - Abyss (2020)

The Frustrations Of Potential

Unleash the Archers have been ceaselessly scaling the mountain of improvement since their beginnings in 2009, with album after album slowly but surely being better and cleaner than the last. That all changed once they reached the summit on the aptly named Apex in 2017, delivering one of the best Power Metal performances I've heard that's only gotten better with a bit of age. Apex is so jam packed with energy from every single member of the band for its entire runtime that I knew it was going to be a tough act to follow up on, especially since it catapulted them into a more mainstream spotlight. As I was checking out Abyss I decided to go back and really analyze Apex even more than I had before and, much to my surprise, it was the album that kept on giving. Lyrics normally aren't my strong suit so I had completely missed the awesome story that Apex had laid out leading up to Abyss. Even though this album had almost no chance of topping Apex for me, it's way rougher around the edges than I anticipated.  

To get anyone caught up with what Unleash the Archers had created with Apex, here's a short rundown of the story: 

The Immortal, the protagonist, is called from his endless slumber to serve an evil woman called The Matriarch to go bring her four sons back so she can sacrifice them and become some sort of all powerful deity. The Immortal must comply and goes to face off against the four brothers, The Immortal not feeling remorse because they each have their own vices. The fourth brother goes willingly and shows The Immortal kindness, which leaves him conflicted. In the end The Matriarch completes the ritual and sends The Immortal back to his mountain prison and basically takes over the world.  

This story accompanied by Apex's music made me really hopeful for the success of Abyss, since it's a direct continuation, but alas, it just doesn't measure up for me in the end. I'll get the ending of the story out of the way first, attempting to not sugarcoat it: 

The Immortal wakes up hundreds of years later and searches through space for a new purpose until he comes across a familiar man, who is the son of the fourth son who was kind to him in Apex. He swears to set The Immortal free from his slavery if he defeats The Matriarch who rules over the universe, but he is still in servitude to The Matriarch who enters his mind every now and again, so he goes to find her. He fights the ghosts of the four sacrificed brothers in an extremely non-descript way and finally faces off against The Matriarch. He runs away for some reason but finally decides to face his problems and fights The Matriarch, using something called The Spark to vanquish The Matriarch in pretty anticlimactic fashion. The Immortal is then set free and chooses to roam the galaxies as a protector rather than choosing death or servitude.  

What made Apex's story so gripping was that it was straight to the point and well defined, each song moving the plot forward at a reasonable pace. There were almost no moments of ambiguous meandering, which created a compelling and easy to follow story once someone paid attention to the lyrics. Abyss fails to keep it simple and falls into some of the same traps as other Power Metal concept albums, with some difficult to follow perspective changes and songs that don't really move the story forward in any meaningful way. There are so many awesome moments that they set up in Apex that just fall flat in Abyss, like the fight with the spirits of the four sacrificed brothers, the final confrontation of The Matriarch, as well as the conflicted morality issues that The Immortal seemed like he would have to face. The overall setting and travelling is also much more confusing, with The Immortal seemingly spending a huge amount of time just travelling the universe in very unclear and anticlimactic ways. While I can deal with almost every Power Metal album having a weak story, the fact that Abyss was supposed to be the gigantic climax to Apex left me wanting much, much more out of it.  

The music itself isn't that much more impressive either, with obvious differences in mixing and production showing up right out of the gate in "Abyss". Abyss feels so much flatter with everything feeling more pushed back and less accented in order to make space for the new use of synths. Even Brittney Slayes' performance feels lacking in places, with the songwriting seemingly pulling her back during certain choruses and a few lyrics that stumble on delivery. The harsh vocals from one of their guitarists still fill the role of speaking from The Matriarch's point of view, showing up in four of the ten tracks but still being pretty sparse, leaving me wanting a bit more of them considering this album was about the final fight with her. The addition of the synths was a somewhat necessary evolution in order to try and distinguish and elevate Abyss from Apex, especially considering the space and future setting, but I found myself never really noticing the synth all that much in the end. While it helps to create a different sounding atmosphere, I don't think it necessarily adds much of anything in the end, even in synth dominated tracks like "Abyss" and "Through Stars".  

Abyss is still an Unleash the Archers album though, so there's some great guitar soloing and shredding to go along with the many great riffs and transitions that they pull off extremely well. Almost every track has some sort of solo, with "Soulbound", "Faster Than Light", and "The Wind That Shapes the Land" having some of the best ones. A lot of the riffs are great as well, but because of the new production style it lacks that punch and raw power that I want out of Unleash the Archers. They still write some incredibly satisfying and technical stuff, but it doesn't come together in a way that works across the album as a whole. While "The Wind That Shapes the Land" and "Afterlife" are epic in their own right, I can't help but think the latter is just too drawn out at the end and the climax of the former just completely misses the mark. All these small, tiny things added up to Abyss just missing for me, even though there are some moments that still hit me pretty hard.  

Hopefully I'll be able to come back to Abyss without the cloudiness of what I think this album could have been, because revisiting Apex only helped to seal this album's fate as a large step down. They had the musical style and story set up perfectly for this album to be a massive climax to a pretty great Power Metal plot and made a few mistakes that removed so much of the raw energy and excitement from their sound. Musically, songs like "Abyss", "Soulbound", and "The Wind That Shapes the Land" give me hope for the future but I'll have to see, especially since I've become overly critical of their work after putting in so much time to Apex.