Arsis - Starve For The Devil

Arsis - Starve for the devil - the review


1. Forced to Rock
2. A March for the Sick
3. From Soulless to Shattered (Art in Dying)
4. Beyond Forlorn
5. The Ten of Swords
6. Closer to Cold
7. Sick Perfection
8. Half Past Corpse O'Clock
9. Escape Artist
10. Sable Rising

I still can't get out of my head very memorable forerunner "We are the nightmare" with the same title leading masterpiece. This band is certainly candidate for the best melodic death metal act made behind the atlantic in the last years. Arsis are known for the fragments of strong roots of Schuldiner signatures, mixed with nowadays influences founded in modern thrash/progressive metal /Mastodon, Lamb of God, Machine Head/.

On the new record has returned the original drummer Mike Van Dyne and probably fans have expected the fab results. Arsis relatively eliminate technical points and also decelerate the speed minus some beats pro minutes what has impact in counts of negative criticisms. On the other hand you can listen during the whole record diversiform drum beats, sophisticated tempo changes, rich rhythm banks, excellent riffs , harmonies and guitar solo equipment of skillfull leader Jimmy Malone. When man in the band makes two functions it alomst always goes hand in hand with negative consequences somewhere inside. /Malone is excellent guitarist but person with the weak, drab vocal performance/. Exception in this way was certainly Chuck from Death.

Record opens the shortest track "Forced To Rock" that is the place of larksome heavy metal sounds changing with crazy fretboard finger dancing . "A March For The Sick" is the most balanced, accurate and compex composition belted very tight with the past musical concepts. "Beyond Forlorn" with feelingful verses and "Closer to Cold" with melodic main theme present the positive fruits for this starving devil. Blast beats with melodic guitars will always leave impression. It's like beauty with the beast on the dancefloor. "Escape Artist" will get into your ears very easy, but after advanced analysis you detect that it is composed very shallow, slovenly. If you are looking for some rare, innovative stuff you would have find very carefully, maybe guitar solos will be the direction to seek. This is all about the modern approach of making extreme metal music which attaches many bands as some undefined phenomenon with bad influence.
Finally, in comparison with previous "nightmare" this records panicly signals the loss of technical figures as we were habituated on previous stuff which relatively means the enter to the mediocre waters where music is fading to black.

Rating: 7/10