Welcome to NK’s Album Flashbacks, where the Negative Kitty shares her thoughts on not-so-recent albums. Today’s album review: Relentless Mutilation by Archspire!

Hold onto your biscuits, sister, because this album kicked me down a flight of stairs and fed me to several eels.

So check it, I’m just chillin’ recently, listening to some technical death metal on Sp*tify, and this song pops up: Calamus Will Animate.

Listen below:

That intro — we all know I love my weird rhythms, but I L.O.V.E. when a fella adds a little Twista to his Cookie Monster gutturals. The combination is perhaps best at display on that delightful chorus. Bro is like, CALAMADDASPUBBA-TUBBA-CHUBBA-SCUBBA-BEEBA-WUBBA. Yes, baby! I wanna go FAST baby! But then the guitars are slooooooow underneath the Cookie Monster scats. And it’s like. Mmm. Okay. Oh, that’s smooth, now. Okay!

BUT THEN THE GUITARS GET FAST AGAIN! DUGGAduggaduggaDUGGAduggaduggaDUGGAdugga! Like, YES, bro.

The verses are nasty as well, but that chorus… when I hear it I fantasize about sticking my head out the top of an army tank, sipping a cup of lean, and bobbing along to the music as we shoot rockets at a five-headed dragon.

So with an album cover like that, y’know, I checked out the rest of this album and it’s pretty solid, IMO. If you’ve got an itch for some well-crafted tech-death with breakneck speed, lots of changes, and some saucy grooves, this album may give that itch a little scratchy-watchie.

Oh yeah, about the band. Archspire is a technical death metal band from Vancouver with about three albums released, by the look of it. That’s pretty coo.

Here’s my other favorite tracks:

• Remote Tumour Seeker. Some pretty tasty grooves in this one.
• Relentless Mutation. This track wins for going to cool places mood-wise and feeling the most like a journey.
• A Dark Horizontal. This song feels like, uh, like a final boss battle where you’re like, sprinting up a skyscraper and shit, and it’s pouring rain, and you jump up to the top of the skyscraper and like, Dave Bautista is there, but he’s like a big evil demon guy, and you’re just like “HIYYYYYAAAAA” and he’s like “I am the reason God weeps” and manifests a giant fist made out of clouds to punch you in the face. And you’re all like ahhhhhhhhh oh no. Something like that. But then you beat him in the end I guess.

This album was released in 2017 — that’s six years ago now! Relentlesspassageoftime-pilled AF. And they do have a more recent album from 2021, so I anticipate listening deeper into that and the rest of their catalogue as well.

So what’s the verdict? I’m giving this album an enthusiastic EPIC BEANS.

That’s all for now. Ta-ta, my angel.

<3 – NKmeow

Like that post? Check out negativekitty.com/blog for more reviews from the Negative Kitty!