For diehard fans of Architects, this is a fantastic set. The band careens through their kinetic metallic noise, executing exceedingly tricky songs perfectly, while the crowd swells up with intensity, lapping up every moment. This reviewer is a diehard fan, right? Nope.
Rewind an hour or two and support Bury Tomorrow peddle their hackneyed hardcore/metal hybrid with unfathomable aplomb. Clichés abound at almost every juncture. Not good. Melbourne’s Deez Nuts fair slightly better. One only needs to look at their name and song titles (“I Hustle Everyday”, “If You Don’t Know, Now You Know”) to see that they’re indebted to hip hop as much as hardcore punk. It works surprisingly well, with the singer thrusting the mic out to eager fans while the band peals through a half hour set. All well and good, but if you want streetwise punk rock without pretence, Madball are playing twenty minutes away.
There are positives and negatives to Architects’ set. It’s kind of fun to watch the band work their way through shards of metal-esque hardcore, the band sound huge and watching bassist Ali Dean get carried from the stage to back of the room pallbearer-style is pure spectacle. However it’s not fun hearing these towering monstrosities collapse into choruses of cheesy singing with pedestrian structures. It’s also not fun having this happen for fifty minutes. No matter what songs they’re picking from their catalogue, it begins to dawn, that all these songs sound very, very similar. When they get it right, they get it so right; the discordant bludgeoning of Early Grave could bring the venue down at any moment, but when it devolves into a tired attempt at catchiness, it’s less than satisfying. Sadly, Architects’ live show is not enough to save them from the structural problems of their weary songs – back to the drawing board, guys.
