Architects – North America Tour 2024

Many bands might not be so keen to rip it up and start again, especially when they’re on to a good thing. Finding yourself with a Number One album and selling out arenas is enough for some to repeat a winning formula. Architects however, are that shark that dies if it stops swimming. “It was definitely validating and felt really cool for like a day,” recalls drummer, producer and songwriter Dan Searle of hitting the top spot with ‘For Those That Wish To Exist’. “For a lot of the bucket list things you reach in any career, there’s a momentary gratification then you’re like, ‘What next?’ You just move on. By the time the album came out, my head was already in the mindset of ‘Broken Spirit’. That was where I was at.”

Searle notes how it was their albums ‘Lost Forever/Lost Together’, ‘All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us’, and ‘Holy Hell’ that really “cemented what the band was about” and “took them to a new level” as a rock powerhouse and leaders of the UK’s metalcore scene – making it all the more “daunting” to reinvent themselves on the records that would follow. “Especially after we re-recorded ‘Wish To Exist’ at Abbey Road with an orchestra, I felt that we had to shelve the strings and all that stuff,” he says. “I wanted to make this album with a different aesthetic. We were enjoying working with the synths and doing stuff that we hadn't done before.”

As a band who never stop writing, the kernels of the songs that make up ‘The Classic Symptoms Of A Broken Spirit’ were already in progress before the ink had time to dry on the artwork of their last record. Architects were on a creative roll, and the record was born of that creative freedom. Produced by Dan Searle and Josh Middleton, with additional production from Sam Carter at Decon’s Middle Farm Studios and their own Brighton Electric Studios before being mixed by Zakk Cervini, the band were buoyed by finally being back in a room together after their last album was made mostly remotely due to COVID restrictions. The result was something altogether more “free, playful and spontaneous,” Searle explains.

“This one was made a little bit more tongue-in-cheek,” he says. “There are definitely parts that we did as a joke! There was more writing on the spot, being a bit giddy and not second-guessing it. That’s not to say that there aren’t songs on this album that weren’t overly slaved over, but this one has the most songs that were written in the moment. This album takes itself a little bit less seriously than our others, despite the name!”

Carter agrees: “This one feels more live, more exciting and more fun – it has that energy. We wanted it to be a lot more industrial and electronic. That was the main mission. They can sit side-by-side: Mr Electronic and Mr Organic.”

Few hard rock albums are as intimate as the modern output from OF MICE & MEN. While their songs pack the kind of rhythmic punch and anthemic bombast that thrills festival crowds, the confessional lyrics, and haunting melodies are the heart of what they do. Taking all creative matters into their own hands, the Southern California quartet self-produced and engineered all of the songs on Tether, their astonishing eighth album. Frontman Aaron Pauley mixed and mastered the album while Drummer Valentino Arteaga designed and painted the album's artwork. As a legion of devoted listeners worldwide has come to expect, guitarists Phil Manansala and Alan Ashby, Aaron, and Tino poured their hearts and souls into every note, creating another sonic document of their lives.

“With this one, we weren’t really focused on how it sounded as much as we focused on how it felt,” Pauley explains. “And that’s a weird thing to do when all you’re working with is sound. But that was really the goal. And we walked away from making it, feeling like we’ve accomplished that.”

OM&M take sobering looks at depression, anxiety, loneliness, and existential dread, powering through the darkness, and emphasizing the importance of creativity as a balm for mental health. A commanding tempest of sounds coalesces within Of Mice & Men, blending the uplifting eloquence of modern active rock with the atmospheric dissonance of experimental post-rock. The band first emerged as part of a vanguard of future aggressive rock hitmakers. Over the years, they’ve distinguished themselves with musicality, creative ambition, and resilient determination.

Some bands play it safe when it comes to taking their next steps. But then, While She Sleeps have never been “some band”. The Sheffield quintet have made a career of confounding expectations, beit through a blend of crushing metal, guttural hardcore and arena-worthy hooks, or how they’ve carried themselves over an explosive 13-year career 2017’s You Are We was a testament to self-belief and determination; crowdfunded and released on the band’s own Sleeps Brothers label, it earned award nominations from Metal Hammer and a Best Album win at the HMAs, as well as landing them in the top 10 UK charts. Now, they look to build on that success with the release of 4th album SO WHAT? With You Are We wrapped up, the band decamped to their self-built Sleeps Audio complex where spent 5 months recording the next chapter. Produced by Carl Bown SO WHAT? promises another defiant step forward. It’s punk, it’s heavy metal, and it sounds unlike anything you’ve heard from them before. It’s the sound of While She Sleeps reborn Set for release on Sleeps Brothers in collaboration with metal mega-label Spinefarm SO WHAT? sees While She Sleeps working with a major for the first time since 2015’s Brainwashed and the band are at pains to point out this won’t mean compromise in their vision. With a bigger platform to get their music into the world, 2019 is shaping up to be the year of While She Sleeps. For a band who’ve spent over a decade redefining modern metal it seems the best is yet to come.