JUNO-Award winning tech death titans ARCHSPIRE has been nominated for a 2022 Western Canadian Music Award in the Metal & Hard Music Artist of the Year category! The full list of nominees is as follows:
Metal & Hard Music Artist of the Year
Archspire – BC
Before & Apace – SK
Flash Back – SK
Osyron – AB
Trench – AB
ARCHSPIRE comments:
“We’ve been nominated for a Breakout West award! Being Canadian means all the awards we’re eligible for, are really just little maple syrup containers sitting atop Tim Hortons doughnuts, sprinkled with cheese curds… But we’re excited nonetheless!
“Congratulations to our fellow nominees!”
ARCHSPIRE has just concluded Tech Trek V in North America, in which they performed to a sold out audience in nearly every city on the four-week run! The band will be embarking on their first ever Latin American tour this year. The full run of dates can be found below!
On May 14, it was revealed that ARCHSPIRE won the Juno Award (Canadian Grammy) in the “Metal/Hard Music Album of the Year” category for their 2021 release, ‘Bleed the Future!’ This was the band’s second nomination for the award.
‘Bleed the Future’ topped Billboard‘s charts for Top New Artists (#2), Current Hard Music Albums (#5), Heatseekers (#7), Independent Current Albums (#8), and more, landing a total of 17 impressive chart placements across North America during its first week!
‘Bleed the Future’ was named The #1 Album of the Year by Pop Matters as well as Banger TV’s Viewer’s Choice! It was also named among one of the best releases of 2021 by Loudwire, Metal Injection, The Pit, Decibel Magazine, Sick Drummer, Heavy New York, Metal Trenches, Revolver Magazine’s Fan Poll, and many others!
Watch the band’s explosive music video for the song, “Drone Corpse Aviator,” which is approaching 1 MILLION views to date, HERE!
‘Bleed the Future’ was released on October 29, 2021! Stream/download/order the album HERE.
ARCHSPIRE “Bleed the Future” Latin America Tour 2022:
June 30: Monterrey (MX)
July 3: Leon (MX)
July 5: Guatemala City (GT)
July 6: El Salvador (SV)
July 7: Queretaro (MX)
July 8: Guadalajara (MX)
July 9: Mexico City (MX)
July 10: Puebla (MX)
September 6: São José dos Campos (BR)
September 7: São Paulo (BR)
September 10: Buenos Aires (AR)
September 13: Santiago (CL)
September 16: Bogota (CO)
September 17: Medellin (CO)
September 18: San Jose (CR)
ARCHSPIRE European Live Dates:
11 Nov 22 Oberhausen (DE) Kulttempel
12 Nov 22 Karlsruhe (DE) Die Stadtmitte
13 Nov 22 Milan (IT) Slaughter Club
14 Nov 22 Aarau (CH) KiFF
15 Nov 22 Munich (DE) Backstage Halle
16 Nov 22 Prague (CZ) Futurum
17 Nov 22 Vienna (AT) Viper Room
18 Nov 22 Budapest (HU) Dürer Kert
19 Nov 22 Poznan (PL) U Bazyla
20 Nov 22 Dresden (DE) Puschkin
21 Nov 22 Berlin (DE) Hole44
22 Nov 22 Hannover (DE) Béi Chéz Heinz
23 Nov 22 Copenhagen (DK) Stengade
24 Nov 22 Hamburg (DE) Logo
25 Nov 22 Nijmegen (NL) Doornroosje
26 Nov 22 Bristol (UK) Thekla
27 Nov 22 London (UK) O2 Academy Islington
28 Nov 22 Glasgow (UK) Cathouse
29 Nov 22 Manchester (UK) Rebellion
30 Nov 22 Birmingham (UK) Mama Roux’s
01 Dec 22 Southampton (UK) The Loft
02 Dec 22 Paris (FR) Gibus
03 Dec 22 Aarschot (BE) De Klinker Club
The artwork for ‘Bleed the Future,’ which has been created by Eliran Kantor, can be viewed together with further album details below.
Track-list
1. Drone Corpse Aviator (3:46) (WATCH)
2. Golden Mouth of Ruin (4:05) (WATCH)
3. Abandon the Linear (4:36)
4. Bleed the Future (3:48) (WATCH)
5. Drain of Incarnation (4:20)
6. Acrid Canon (4:09)
7. Reverie on the Onyx (3:47)
8. A.U.M. (3:04)
Total: 31:35
Archspire’s 2017 Relentless Mutation was a cavalcade of speed and extremity — blasting, accelerating and, in partial reference to its title, “mutating” as each song unfolded, all the while rapid-fire, shotgun vocals blurred the lines between a man’s throat and additional instrument. It was, unquestionably, an innovation of sound and technique — Archspire had broken the speed barrier while creating songs memorable as they were unabashedly extreme for extreme metal. Thus, the pressure was already there to top Relentless Mutation when the band started to compile new songs in 2018. The global pandemic heightened the situation (read: no touring, expanded free time) and caused Archspire to turn inward and apply additional rigor to their songwriting process, albeit painstakingly so. But by the end of the fraught calendar year that was 2020, the band emerged with their fourth studio album, Bleed the Future.
According to the members of Archspire — vocalist Oli Aleron, guitarists Dean Lamb and Tobi Morelli, bassist Jared Smith and drummer Spencer Prewett — they originally went into the making of Bleed the Future under the idea they would finish the album in between the various tours scheduled for 2020. Of course, none of that happened, prompting the band to do more pre-production than at any time in their career. Archspire then subjected the album’s eight songs to near-constant critiquing that ensured they came away with a product, that in their estimation, is their best to date.
“The benefit we had was that Relentless came out in 2017,” says Lamb. “Since then, we toured more than we ever did before. We had the viewpoint of ‘What do crowds like? What parts should we write more of? What parts do people give us good feedback on?’ We wanted to expand and write those parts more consistently — there are more hooks and when we do have hooks, we wanted to repeat those parts so people will know that this is the catchy part of the song.”
“The most important thing was that we had clever songwriting,” adds Prewett. “We wanted the album to be more accessible to more people but still keep it extreme, fast and technical. So, we changed our process this time. We recorded rehearsal every day and listened to what we did afterward. We’d then come back to the jam spot and change riffs and ideas based on what everyone was thinking about during the week. It resulted in an album that everyone was happier with.”
Archspire also had the stated goal for Bleed the Future that they wanted to get faster. While such a feat may defy reason given their previous output, the band wrote their fastest song to date — the album-closing “AUM,” a cut that opens up with an audio recording of a German friend of Prewett’s who, according to the drummer, enjoys ragging on Archspire. Comedic clips aside, “AUM,” caps off an album that pushes the boundaries of speed but also is textured — Smith’s ethereal basslines often serve as mid-song interludes, while Lamb and Morelli weave melodic, spiraling guitar lines that annihilate the fretboard during “Abandon the Linear,” “Bleed the Future” and “Acrid Canon.” Accordingly, the members of Archspire were keenly aware of the expectations placed upon them after the success of Relentless Mutation. The online comments regarding whether they could top Relentless Mutation was also occasionally on their minds when composing Bleed the Future and prompted the band to ensure that all five members were happy with everything — down to the last riff, vocal line, bass run and drum pattern. “Audience expectation is really important,” says Lamb. “If we leave the jam spot and everyone is stoked on a song, it’s pretty likely that the audience will be stoked. We have the expectation of the audience, but we also have to be pumped on the music. I feel the proudest of the music. We spent more time on the songs and got better at writing. I feel it’s better music.”
“It’s an extremely tedious writing process,” adds Smith. “If anyone isn’t feeling a riff, we scrap it and have to find something we’re all happy with. It can be super-frustrating in the moment, but in the end, we have something better. We want everything we write to be a step up and I think we achieved that with Bleed the Future.”
The album is accompanied by a concept developed by Aleron that begs the question: What happens when humans start giving birth to non-humans? Born from a weird dream the vocalist had, Bleed the Future’s concept does not have finality or a conclusion. It does, however, posit a few ethical dilemmas to ties into Archspire’s long-running science fiction themes.
“I thought about what if those things they were giving birth to could actually benefit them in the future so they wouldn’t want to reject them,” says Aleron. “What would happen to the humans that weren’t born? Would they go to a different dimension? I played with that whole idea because I hadn’t seen a horror movie where that was the theme. It worked for all the songs. The only social commentary is that people don’t know what they’re giving birth to — if you put someone on this planet, you don’t know whether they’re going to be good or evil.”
Bleed the Future was recorded in October and November 2020 at Flatline Audio in Colorado with producer/engineer Dave Otero. This was the second consecutive album the band worked with Otero. According to Morelli, the recording process was seamless. “Dave was already familiar with what we each can do individually,” he says. “This time, he was more prepared to tackle those elements. How he tracks was more focused on what we were capable of and I think it really shows here.”
As live show activity for 2021 hangs in the balance (Archspire currently has dates lined up for November), the pandemic has prompted many bands to re-think their new album release dates as well as how to stay visible in a world currently without touring. But, with a fanbase that has embraced the band’s online presence that includes playthroughs, tutorials and now, cooking shows (!), Archspire heads into the Bleed the Future album cycle the benefactors of their commitment to touring and, most of all, position as one of death metal’s most forward-thinking bands.
“We have a lot of awesome fans, so I think they’ll be there to support us and pick up the album because they like the music,” says Lamb. “We’re a self-managed band; we’ve been working with the same label for ten years and I think the outcome will be good. Would it had been better if we had been on a full North American tour starting a week before the album release? Sure, but I think people will come out and support us through other means. As soon as we’re ready to go back on tour and everybody is safe to do so, we’ll be out there.”
Style: Extreme Technical Death Metal
FFO: Beyond Creation, Necrophagist, The Faceless
Links:
www.archspire.bandcamp.com
www.facebook.com/Archspireband
www.twitter.com/Archspireband
www.instagram.com/archspireofficial
www.youtube.com/user/Archspiremetal
Lineup:
Oliver Rae Aleron: vocals
Spencer Prewett: drums
Dean Lamb: guitars
Tobi Morelli: guitars
Jared Smith: bass
Recording Studio: Flatline Audio (Denver, CO, USA)
Producer/mixing/mastering/engineer: Dave Otero
Cover art: Eliran Kantor
Bio: David E. Gehlke
