Review by Daniel for Arkangel (BEL) - Prayers Upon Deaf Ears (1998)

Belgian trio Arkangel seem to have built up a fairly strong reputation in the underground metalcore scene over the years with all of their releases being held in quite high regard by those in the know. I recently realised that I hadn’t actually checked them out before & found the links to thrash & death metal to be quite the drawcard. Their most critically acclaimed debut E.P. seemed to be a good starting point given its short run time so I thought I’d start there with this month’s The Revolution feature release seeming like the perfect opportunity for us all to explore 1998’s “Prayers Upon Deaf Ears” together.

My first impressions of Arkangel weren’t great it has to be said. The production job on “Prayers Upon Deaf Ears” is subpar at best with the levels being all over the place, a fairly ordinary snare sound & the vocals blaring over the top at obscene volumes. The level of musicianship isn’t real flash either to be honest & this leaves the band sounding a bit unprofessional to tell you the truth. Some of the six tracks simply don’t gel with the vocals sounding like they could be screaming over a completely different song to the one their band mates are trying to produce. I think the production probably accentuates that effect further too. The vocals are admittedly quite aggressive & are one of Arkangel’s strengths but I can’t find seem to find myself getting all that excited about them which tells me that they’re being done an injustice by their accompaniments.

Arkangel’s sound is pretty vicious for the late 90’s & is strongly influenced by extreme metal. The guitar tone is very much in line with US thrash/groove metal outfit Exhorder & some of the riffs remind me of them too actually. You can also expect some pretty blatant Slayer worship going on at times while some of the tremolo-picked single notes riffs seem to have been plucked straight out of the early Entombed playbook. That all sounds great on paper & I would have thought it would have amounted to an enjoyable release for me but it wasn’t to be with the last few tracks seeing my hopes being further dashed & leading into one of those awfully meaningless hidden tracks after a pause of about a minute.

I imagine that releases like “Prayers Upon Deaf Ears” build their reputations on pure vitriol but I need a bit more quality to keep me interested so I can’t help but feel that it’s an overrated record. The technical deficiencies are too blaringly obvious & the overall package seems more like a demo than a proper release.

For fans All Out War, Day Of Suffering & xRepentancex.