Archspire is a Canadian Technical Death Metal band from Vancouver, British Columbia. Formed as Defenestrated in 2007 before changing their name to its current version, the group released their debut album All Shall Align in 2010 via Trendkill Recordings. Two years later, Archspire signed itself to Season of Mist in 2013 and released its second full-length album The Lucid Collective to positive reviews. The band released their third album Relentless Mutation on September 22, 2017 to critical acclaim and an upsurge in popularity thanks to its radical, rapid-fire take on tech-death, with the album being nominated for Metal/Hard Music Album of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2018. In 2019, the band made tech news headlines when a duo of programmers called Dadabots created a neural network based on Archspire's music to produce a non-stop stream of technical death metal based on the band's music; Dadabots also noted that Archspire's music produced the most consistent results for the AI presumably because of the high tempo and technical, precise nature of the songs. On October 29, 2021, Archspire released their latest album Bleed the Future that continued the style established in Relentless Mutation while taking it beyond its roots, being elected the 16th best rock/metal album of 2021 by Loudwire amidst critical acclaim.
Current Members:
- Oliver Rae Aleron - vocals (2009-present)
- Tobi Morelli - 7 and 8-string guitar (2009-present)
- Dean Lamb – 8-string guitar (2009–present)
- Jared Smith – bass (2016–present)
- Spencer Prewett – drums (2009–present)
Former Members:
- Jaron Evil – bass, backing vocals (2009–2013)
- Clayton Harder – bass (2013–2016)
- Shawn Hache – vocals (2009)
Discography:
- All Shall Align (Full-length, 2011)
- The Lucid Collective (Full-length, 2014)
- Relentless Mutation (Full-length, 2017)
- Bleed the Future (Full-length, 2021)
TROPE THE FUTURE!
- Body Horror: Whatever's happening on the cover of Relentless Mutation is certainly not something that the body should be capable of doing.
- Call-Back: "Drone Corpse Aviator" and "A. U. M." serve as these for Relentless Mutation on Bleed The Future.
- Career-Ending Injury: Founding bassist Jaron Evil suffered a stroke in early 2013, forcing him to leave the band due to the stroke crippling his ability to play bass in the band.
- Concept Album: Relentless Mutation tells a Cosmic Horror Story about the Drip, an ancient, tar-like alien substance/organism that is discovered by the doomsday cult A. U. M. and used for their quest to enact genocide. Bleed The Future tells a story in which humans have started giving birth to aliens called the Boanet instead of regular humans, with the Boanet bringing unspecified benefits to mankind.
- Eye Scream: The Drip invades host bodies by entering their eyes, which the album cover of Relentless Mutation illustrates in all of its grisly glory.
- Indecipherable Lyrics: Zigzagged; while Oliver's enunciation is impeccably clear and precise, the sheer speed at which he sings will make it downright impossible to make out the lyrics even if you have lyric sheets on hand.
- Loudness War: Bleed the Future was hit pretty hard with this.
- Motor Mouth: Practically ubiquitous throughout their discography, with Relentless Mutation ramping up on its use.
- Mutagenic Goo: The Drip mutates its hosts into fast, relentless zombies with Super-Strength, flight, hardened skeletons that can be modified to suit its needs, and the ability to transform into any other organism it consumes.
- New Sound Album: Relentless Mutation saw the band ramp up their already-fast music even further than what could be thought possible within Technical Death Metal, with Bleed The Future continuing that trend.
- Possessing a Dead Body: The Drip's other method of possession when it doesn't have living hosts to take over.
- Technical Death Metal: Of the brutal, blisteringly fast variant pioneered by Origin.
- Technically-Living Zombie: Those possessed by the Drip are still alive, but have their minds overridden by the substance and transformed into mutated killers with the ability to fly in some unspecified manner.
- You Are Who You Eat: One such ability within the Drip's repertoire of disturbing powers.
- Your Head Asplode: What happens to Oli, Dean and Tobi in the video for "Drone Corpse Aviator".
