The Famine had a hell of a time getting
The Architects of Guilt
recorded. Maybe that sounds a little clich? for a metal band, but
when a fire wipes out your recording studio along with all your gear
and songs, it’s a pretty hellish ordeal.

The
Famine has risen from the flames with an essentially solid if
unremarkable offering that’s strictly for modern death metal
fanatics.

Lyrically,
the album tends away from stereotypical death metal topics for a more
social commentary-focused approach. Death and decay are certainly in
the lyrics, but here refer to the destructive effects of mindless
politics and capitalistic excess on American society. It’s a
refreshing change from the typical death metal tropes, though it
definitely hasn’t lost the genre’s edge for venomous diction.

Nick
Nowell, formerly The Famine’s bassist, has shifted to vocals and is
an equally effective at screaming and growling, though he tends
toward the former. This gives the music a slight deathcore tinge, but
not enough of one to necessarily cram it into that nebulous genre,
and death metal purists shouldn’t be turned off by the label. The
high point of Nowell’s vocals come in the beginning of “VII The
Fraudulent,” as he screams “Liar Liar Liars” with the most rage
on the entire album. It’s no small feat to make a vocal line pop up
above the rest of a death metal album for its aggression.

The guitar and bass work (provided by
Andrew Godwin and Jon Richardson respectively) is admirable with a
smattering of finger-twisting riffs. The few guitar solos on the
album prove that Godwin has some technical chops (beyond his rhythm
work), but the solos themselves generally feel uninspired and
unnecessary.

Mike Garza’s drumming performs to the
machinistic perfection one would expect from a death metal band. This
is central to songs like “VII The Fraudulent,” where the guitar,
bass and drums come together in a jaw-dropping blast beat lockstep
that make it probably the strongest song on the album. The drumming
rarely enters any uncharted territory, but some bizarre time
signature changes thrown into several of the songs keep the rhythms
from becoming overly stale.

Faster songs like “A Fragile Peace”
blister along at comfortably manic tempos, but the slower “mosh
breaks” interspersed in each tend to crush the song’s energy rather
than simply shifting up the tempo for the sake of song structure.
There are times when the lurch helps, though, as with the album’s
final song “To The Teeth,” which rumbles along at an
uncomfortable pace with a rhythm like a dying motor. This works
perfectly with the song’s doomed lyrical tone.

The main problem with the album is not
that there is anything necessarily wrong with the songs. Rather, it’s
simply a genre-typical death metal album with few defining
characteristics. Death metal fans should find The Architects of
Guilt enjoyable but largely
underwhelming. The lyrical themes help the album from being overly
derivative, but musically the songs have a tendency to blend in with
one another as well as the genre around them.

2 out of 5 stars