The sixth studio album from Brighton, England-based
metalcore outfit Architects UK, Lost Forever, Lost Together, is the most
eclectic and ambitious yet tightly controlled album so far in the band’s
ten-year career. Making their Epitaph Records debut, Architects (They
are only know as the Architects UK in the US) deepen their blend of
brutal, thundering metal and melody-spiked hardcore with heavier
riffs and intricate arrangements inspired by artists as unlikely as Sigur
Ros. And with lyrics delving into everything from the Fukushima
nuclear disaster to Architects’ guitarist/keyboardist/chief songwriter
Tom Searle’s recent bout with skin cancer, Lost Forever, Lost Together
artfully delivers an emotional charge that’s both devastating and glorious.
For the follow-up to their 2012 album Daybreaker, Architects
(whose lineup also includes Tom’s twin brother Dan on drums,
Sam Carter on lead vocals, and Alex Dean on bass) took to Studio
Fredman in the Swedish city of Gothenburg in the middle of the sunlight-
starved winter, working with producers Fredrik Nordström and
Henrik Udd (both known for their work with Bring Me the Horizon
and chosen largely because “we’ve always been big fans of how massive
their records sound,” according to Sam). Opening with 15 seconds
of swirling guitar before bursting into the melodic thrash of “Gravedigger,”
Lost Forever, Lost Together loads up nearly every track with
monster-sized riffs and Sam’s masterful, larynx-shredding vocals.
Throughout the album, Architects also weave in ambient elements
that sometimes verge on gauzy and dreamlike: the instrumental “Red
Hypergiant” threads a sample of voiceover from a Carl Sagan film
through an oceanic wall of sound, while the album-closing “Distant
Blue” starts out as a snarling, lead-heavy epic and then unfolds into
spacey ethereality. “We all love post-rock bands like This Will Destroy
You and Sigur Ros, so this was a way for us to bringing in something
serene and subtle but still be heavy at the same time,” says Tom.
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