Review by Saxy S for Ashenspire - Hostile Architecture (2022)

2022 has been a surprisingly good year for post-rock so far. Perhaps this year was a bad one to finally hang up the reviewing jacket since it was, in fact, post-rock that eventually led to my departure in the first place. 2021 was such a boring year for all different styles of post-rock and adjacent music. Leave it to Black Country, New Road and foxtails in hardcore punk to give me one final hurrah at the start of this year before being swamped with a bunch of indistinguishable mush and my eventual departure.

Of course, it was likely that post-metal would have to get involved in this somehow. And since my review retirement did not include heavy metal, I figured I would give the new Ashenspire album, Hostile Architecture, a spin or two. And as much as I do not want to admit it, it is albums just like this one that distanced me from the critical world of album reviews.

Let's start off with the positives because there are a lot of them. The production of this album is splendid. This album has great chemistry between the guitars and bass lines. I personally found the guitars to sound a little groggy during the heavy chugging passages, but an album like this does not focus on metalcore adjacent breakdowns and mixing very much. The percussion is top notch, borrowing a lot from black metal with some ferocious blast beat patterns that do not become overbearing. While the vocals did take a little bit of time to get used to, I found them to be quite strong, especially with the precise pronunciation and diction. And I would be remised if I didn't mention the quasi jazz saxophone solos that appear on this record sporadically. The horns sound dark and full instead of the brighter sounds that run rampant on a number of recent metal albums, from bands such as White Ward.

But my biggest issue with this album is the content. Now look, I'm not going to come on here and bash the album for its timeliness and cringe inducing lyricism; especially sine it is coming from a political point of view that I abandoned a long time ago. But let's compare it to Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road from earlier this year. That album was not necessarily political, but it had an arc surrounding it that was brought forth in the music. Hooks were sparse, but small vocal motifs were allowed to resonate and give them a quiet anthemic feel. By comparison sake, Hostile Architecture doesn't have motifs either, but the vocals are so flustered and all over the place that they don't provide the listener with any sort of anthemic power. To me, the vocals of Hostile Architecture sound like a sermon; a sermon that I hopelessly tuned out of as early as "Béton Brut".

There is a reason why Rage Against the Machine's music is so poignant to this day, and it's not because of the messaging. It's the timelessness of it all, plus the quick jabs during their choruses are so instantly anthemic. Ashenspire created an album here that has populism, and you could make the argument that the vocals are delivered with power, but the precision is severely lacking. I would like this album more if it was just an instrumental one.

Best Songs: Plattenbau Persphone Praxis, Tragic Heroin, Apathy as Arsenic Lethargy as Lead