ARCHSPIRE

ARCHSPIRE are fucking ridiculous. Death metal heavyweights with an insatiable need for speed, the Vancouver vandals have been setting new standards for brutality and technicality since 2009, and their fearsome reputation precedes them like an out-of-control freight train ploughing through a supermarket. There are many bands in extreme metal that can claim to be insanely fast, but only ARCHSPIRE have turned those levels of implausible intensity into an enduring virtue. If you want death metal that delivers a debilitating concussion every time, albums like 2017's "Relentless Mutation" and its widely celebrated follow-up, 2021's "Bleed the Future", are unsurpassable benchmarks. The great advantage that the band have over what little credible competition exists, is that their songwriting extends beyond the simple act of being faster than everybody else. ARCHSPIRE write great death metal songs that just happen to be delivered at a preposterous, neck-threatening lick. The ability to perform this stuff in the first place is obviously wildly impressive, but it's the way that melody, structure and atmosphere are given equal weight in their songs that makes the quintet such a peerless and devastating proposition.

Between the last ARCHSPIRE album and this, wryly titled follow-up, founding members Dean Lamb, Tobi Morelli and Oliver Rae Aleron had the unenviable task of finding a suitable replacement for departing drummer Spencer Prewett. Extreme metal drumming has evolved exponentially over the last 40 years but even given the laudable skills of many contemporary masters of the percussive arts, there cannot be many people capable of pulling off fan favorites like "Drone Corpse Aviator" and "Human Murmuration" in the flesh or with any consistency. Amusingly, ARCHSPIRE didn't just find the right man for the job: they also found someone with the same first name, which must have made the change in personnel a lot easier to process. Spencer Moore is the new blur of limbs behind the kit, and "Too Fast to Die" is a mind-blowing statement of intent, both from him and his more experienced bandmates. Rather than give their new drummer an easy introduction to their music, the Canadians have written several of their most ludicrously speedy songs to date, once again upping the ante for the entire technical death metal genre in the process. Moore is a one-man blastbeat blizzard and, on this evidence, superhuman. We can only hope that he's getting his vitamins.

Newly independent and plainly motivated to live up to their terrifying reputation, ARCHSPIRE have conjured a fifth studio album that maximizes both their trademark speed freakery, and the overall efficacy of the songs themselves. Despite being delivered at full throttle, almost for its entire 39 minutes, "Too Fast to Die" offers much more than athletic prowess. From the opening "Liminal Cypher" onwards, it brims with euphoric melody and pinpoint dynamics, providing turbo-charged vocalist Aleron with a backdrop that constantly shifts between all-out brutality and more measured and groovy deviations from the hell-for-leather norm. The likes of recent single "Red Goliath" and the absurdly punishing "Limb Of Leviticus" are even more startling than previous material, showcasing a more sophisticated approach to arrangements and a more meticulous obsession with the fine details. "Carrion Ladder" and "Deadbolt the Backward" are two clear standouts on initial listens, but there isn't a moment here that won't elicit sudden cries of "What the actual FUCK!" ARCHSPIRE are well aware of their capabilities, but while a song like "The Vessel" is undeniably crazed and crushing, the complexity and virtuosity on display is never overstated or made the central focus of it all. Instead, "Too Fast to Die" is an audacious show of strength: intermittently progressive, bizarrely easy to digest, and sonically pristine in a way that most metal albums at this end of the extremity spectrum could only dream of being.

It all reaches a crescendo of frenzied but finessed barbarity on the closing title track. Hitting tempos that have only been possible in the past with the use of programmed drums, Moore is the snarling, red-hot engine driving everything forward, and the remaining members of the band somehow manage to keep up with him. The result is like being propelled into a hail of machine-gun fire with a jet engine on your back. Aleron's vocals are a staccato abomination; Lamb and Morelli's guitar work is brilliantly unfathomable; and even bassist Jared Smith's contributions are executed with dizzying precision, albeit while slightly hidden behind the overwhelming chaos erupting from his comrades.

"Too Fast to Die" may be death metal stretched to its most deranged outer limits, but it has color, character and cleverness in plentiful supply. Music this extreme should not be this easy to listen to, but ARCHSPIRE have, again, pulled off the seemingly impossible. Too fast? Don't be silly.