Album Review: Architects – Lost Forever//Lost Together
3 min read
Since the start of the year, Architects have been exciting and teasing fans with singles from their highly anticipated new album Lost Forever//Lost Together before streaming the record in its entirety on YouTube ahead of its official release.
The newest album has showed remarkable promise in each of the singles released as a taste of what was to come – setting the bar almost impossibly high with Naysayer, Broken Cross and C.A.N.C.E.R, and now that it has arrived, fans and critics alike are praising the newest release as the group’s best yet. Lost Forever//Lost Together is perhaps their most musically consistent release, featuring no pure clean or acoustic tracks which is a first for an Architects album and instead producing a relentlessly heavy collection as their first effort with Epitaph Records.
Lyrically and musically the album is emotionally charged and brutally beautiful, making reference to the Fukushima nuclear disaster as well as the band’s own guitarist/keyboardist/songwriter Tom Searle’s recent battle with skin cancer. Unapologetically honest, Architects are known to speak their mind on important issues, which they do throughout Lost Forever//Lost Together, notably in the powerful religion-questioning single Broken Cross (“One thing’s for sure, he doesn’t fucking love us”).
The album opens with Gravedigger, a melodic onslaught of Architects brilliance which doesn’t ease off for the entire record. Featuring a heavy, tight instrumental background with Sam Carter’s aggressive and emotionally powerful vocals punctuated by his beautiful cleans, Gravedigger hints that the album will be heavy and impressive and what follows does not disappoint.
Next up is the first single off the album, Naysayer – which set the internet alight upon its release as fans shared their approval and excitement for the upcoming full-length. Following the two first singles in Naysayer and Broken Cross is The Devil Is Near which allows time to catch your breath only in the middle thanks to a spoken sample which reminds us of the importance of respecting the other organisms on the Earth.
In the middle of the album lies Red Hypergiant, which samples a spoken quote from Astronomer and Author Carl Sagan over a melodic instrumental background (“… A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism, and recognises that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet”). The result is a thought-provoking track which marks the centre of the album before returning to all its heavy glory with C.A.N.C.E.R.
The back end of the album hides away several gems in Colony Collapse, Castles in the Air and Youth is Wasted on the Young (which is the track where the album got its name from). The record finishes strongly with The Distant Blue which sees Sam truly out-do himself vocally as he provides an emotionally charged performance to wind the album down to a stunning halt.
At the risk of overselling, this is arguably Architects’ best work to date and will quite possibly be regarded as one of the best albums of 2014. The musical flow and control is brilliant, as are the lyrics and Sam Carter’s distinctive, powerful vocals which feature just the right balance of cleans against the album’s heaviness. Fans will not be let down by Lost Forever//Lost Together and it is the perfect opportunity for new fans to familiarise themselves with the band.
