Arceye - At First Light

Arceye is a four-piece death/thrash metal band from Shrewsbury UK. Since forming in late 2004 with a handful of riffs and heavy music as their drive, they have relentlessly been unleashing their brand of metal to the masses. 2007 saw the Release of the E.P ‘As The Ground Consumes You’ with Recognition from Terrorizer Magazine “A crowd pleasing mix up of Thrash and Melodic Death Metal” and Kerrang! “The Promising sound of the British Metal Underground. In 2009 Arceye released their debut album ‘The Divide between Chaos & Order’. The album was mastered by studio guru Russ Russell (Evile, Napalm Death, Dimmu Borgir) and has been hailed as “A Searing Cross-Genre Metal Eruption from the UK Underground.

The album is impressively put together and goes into depth offering a superb booklet that contains glossy pics of the band plus lyrics, with an equally eye catching front cover depicting howling wolves and the creation of Craig Mackay www.craigmackaydesign.co.uk

At First Light
A brewing ambiance creeps malevolently forward with thickening drum patterns amid a torrent of gnarly riffs and harsh bass hooks, creating a steep environment on which to lay the foundations to what ignites into a bombardment of ferocious strings and gravelly throaty vocal. Like a tidal wave it sweeps everything from its path and leaves nothing in its aggressive wake.

The Storm
Intimidating, building on a stupendous wave of rhythms it explodes harshly into feverish gnarliness. The growls protrude fiercely into a boisterous accompaniment of elevated intensity amid bruising blast beats that plough their way through the track at a rate of speedy knots, whilst the bass hooks sink their gnarly notes into the aural. Pleasing on all levels.

The Longest Drive
Softly caressing strings fluctuate wildly on a well-balanced level until the flame is ignited and then it suddenly turns into a beast. Its grasping energy brandishes its fury with eager recklessness, slowing briefly to fire up once more into a passionate and emotive frenzy of unforgiving rhythms.

I Silently Wait
A battering array of gnarliness grips you by the jugular and doesn’t stop throttling you, infecting the blood with a wiry prowess, the vocals damming and brutal – even as it slows briefly it catches you unaware as it continues its vicious onslaught – one superb track!

Sirius
Another shrill fret-full wonder of sophistication surges rhythmically into a myriad of rich flavoured guitar and evenly carved beats. It manipulates extremely well with an elegant persuasion. Powerful arms embrace with a significant and profound resonance but holding no malice at all within its strenuous rhythms - giving out an intensity of impacting flourishes and is an amazing instrumental.

Brother Disarmed
Compelling, this track rides the emotive waves of its destiny – which happens to be right to the aural cavities.  Vocally scathing and raw it will leave scorch marks as it burns its way caustically into the delicate listening receptacles and brutally gnaws with a swathe of melodic synchronicity.

Prey Forgiveness
Sharp intake of breath time as the riffs climb to great heights of aural splendour. Mesmerising and euphoric the rhythms build into a swaggering inferno of molten metal as it pushes its own boundaries. Its core is one of immense intensity and power that will satisfy the deepest thirst.

Damage Done
Sparse fluctuating strings leave their mark amid a whispered vocal that caresses like a feather – and then it reaches a climax with explosive quality.  Punishing rhythms fester and then...  Sadly a weak vocal emerges, which up until this point the track was starting to sizzle nicely, but then tends to lose its metal spark on the proceedings.

The Thirst (guest vocals Richard Thomson – Xerath)
Ravenous and rapturous beats display their capabilities amid a gravelly onslaught - the band have indeed redeemed themselves with a superior quality here. This track literally blisters with a caustic primal energy that swaggers under the weight of the rich thickening rhythms that twist themselves around a powerful barrage of riffs, gnarly beats and throaty growls, courtesy of Richard Thomson – One superb track!

Dusk
Beautiful ambient strings squeak as fingers hit them in this mesmerising display of pure sophistication – it literally takes your breath away.

This is one hearty feast of diversity, with nearly every track apart from ‘Damage done’ which slightly loses out on vocal content, is extremely exciting and gripping. The dexterity of the strings is remarkable alone, whilst the drumming goes from the sublime to the ridiculous on the rapturous scale.  Housing some classical moments, as well as death defying growls and pummelling beats, with equally bruising bass hooks take over - this is one meaty album and indeed something to get your teeth into, so on the whole it deserves to be explored and savoured.

  1. At First Light
  2. The Storm
  3. The Longest Drive
  4. I Silently Wait
  5. Sirius
  6. Brother Disarmed
  7. Prey Forgiveness
  8. Damage Done
  9. The Thirst (guest vocals Richard Thomson – Xerath)
  10. Dusk


Self released
Reviewer: Pagan Hel
Jun 12, 2013

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