AN ARCHSPIRE UPDATE

I’ve been following Archspire for a long time, since December 2010 to be exact, when I came across their debut EP in one of my MISCELLANY excursions. Here’s part of what I wrote back then:

“This is a truly eye-popping convulsion of tech-death, with schizophrenic rhythms, astounding technical riffing and drumwork, and tiny threads of reappearing melody that stitch the songs together into cohesive wholes. And I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a death-metal vocalist bark out the lyrics faster than Archspire’s . . . . This is most definitely a band to keep your eyes on; you will hear more about them.”

Take it from me, it’s nice to be clairvoyant. We have indeed heard a lot more from this band — their 2011 debut album All Shall Align kicked a lot of ass and it landed them on a bunch of Canadian and European tours. But 2013 is turning out to be their most promising year yet. In early March, they signed with Season of Mist, and they’re now recording their SoM debut (and second album overall), which should appear later this year.

Today I saw a new studio video from the band’s sessions at Rain City Recorders. There appears to have been beer involved, but you wouldn’t know it to watch and listen to drummer Spencer Prewett. Holy fuck. We’re talking hyper-fast human blur activity.

We also learn in the video that sometimes guitar tracking works best with no pants.

That video is the second of two studio updates. The first one was devoted to critical pre-production activity, such as learning how to say “Season of Mist”. There is so much pent-up creative energy in this segment, it’s like watching a ticking time bomb about to detonate:

Okay, I kid. But I’m not kidding about this: I’m expecting an explosion of progressive, technical death metal from this band when their second album is done. Let me emphasize, these are high expectations. This album goes on our 2013 “eagerly anticipated” list.

To keep track of Archspire’s progress, check out their Facebook page via this link.