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A review of Arsis’s “We Are The Nightmare”

The day I bought this CD was epic. I didn’t even listen to it that night, I just pored over the album art and studied the packaging.

Story to tell

James Malone is the mastermind behind Arsis. He attended Berklee College of Music for a degree classical composition, specializing in violin performance. During his stay at Berklee, he met Michael VanDyne, “a drum performance major and rumored octopus.” (Sorry, that quote was too good not to link to.)

Previous entries in Arsis’s discography have always floored me because they were recorded by these two men. James handled the lyrics, vocals, guitars, bass (in most cases), and overall songwriting, and Michael hammered away on his kit.

The first album, A Celebration Of Guilt, was met with raving success absolutely everywhere. Ask your grandma, I bet even she’s heard of it by now. Here’s a snippet from what I consider to be the greatest review of anything, ever.

Arsis is amazing. This CD should be called ‘Celebration of AWESOME’.

[…]

Full of skull shattering drum parts and more guitar intricacies than you could ever think was possible, A Celebration of Guilt rises above the rest of most metal albums out there today. In the death metal market which is almost completely capitalized on by the northern Europeans, Arsis stands its ground not moving for anyone and bringing melodic death metal one huge step closer to the U.S.

The CD was so badass, a clique of freaks in New York City who like to perform ballet to heavy music, Ballet Deviare, contacted James and asked whether he’d compose a piece just for them. Which he did. I still don’t understand all of the title track “A Diamond For Disease,” but it’s one of my favorite pieces by the band.

After A Diamond For Disease, James and Michael went on to record United In Regret, a darker and more brooding album, although still furnished with a technical virtuosity that makes my eyes glaze over whenever I listen to it. In my opinion, this downshift in mood could only lead to a more furiously technical next album, but that change was facilitated by other factors, too.

The master’s apprentices

Sadly, Michael did not stay on with James to record the newest album, We Are The Nightmare. When Michael stated his decision to leave the band, James started looking for a replacement—as if any such beast has ever existed, or will ever exist. This led to the induction of several new members, so that Arsis at long last had a full lineup. The timing of the additions was such that the newcomers were able to contribute to the composition of the album, undeniably changing the chemistry of what constitutes Arsis.

The new bandmates are Noah Martin on bass, who served as a session player on United In Regret, Ryan Knight on guitar, and Darren Cesca on drums

Now, Noah seems like a great guy all around, and his playing on United In Regret was fantastic. Sadly, the new album has the bass buried deep in the mix, and his playing is all but inaudible, save for the smooth bass melody line that opens the disc.

Ryan has played with The Knife Trade, a rather uninspired metalcore act. I don’t believe his technical fury was at all utilized by that band, but recording with Arsis definitely allowed—or, with respect to Arsis’s past albums, forced—him to step up the fretwork many notches.

Then there’s Darren. Darren is also a grad of Berklee, majoring in drum performance, and already has a pretty impressive catalogue under his belt. Knowing his drumming only through this new album with Arsis, I cannot question his skill as a drummer. I do, however, take issue with his style. It’s a drastic departure from VanDyne’s drumming, and is for me the stain on We Are The Nightmare.

The empty throne

photo by williamhartz on flickr

Filling VanDyne’s shoes is impossible. While Cesca is a fantastically talented drummer, I don’t think his technique fits in well with the Arsis formula. Here’s why.

In metal, the drums should serve as the chassis of the machine, with all other instrumentation balustraded out from it. To use trite war imagery when describing metal, drums are the treads and the hulk of the tank, rhythm guitars are the main cannon, blasting away at the front, lead guitars the machine guns exploring the four dimensions around the tank, and bass is the sound of the engine grinding away, giving early tell of downshifts or turret rotation.

Drums are the mana in the casting of the spell. If your mana flow is sputtering or chunky, in any way inconsistent or irregular, then the spell will fizzle.

Take this example of VanDyne’s sense of thunder.

Now compare with Cesca’s stylings on the new CD.

Cesca’s performance is comparatively meek, reticent to pull out the stops. Now, this could be seen as crediting his confidence and skill. Perhaps Cesca believes he doesn’t need dish out blastbeats for several minutes at a time in order to prove himself; perhaps he’s trying to tone back the drums a bit in order to showcase the guitarwork.

In fact, it might be that Malone specifically requested that he chill the balls, in order to make the guitar intricacy the focus of this album. Maybe that was a bone of contention with VanDyne, that his drumming was almost as arresting as James’s riffing. To be sure, We Are The Nightmare definitely drops the ball on the rhythm riffing, in favor of pretentiously technical lead passages, and thus thunderous drum parts aren’t particularly well suited to the new songs.

Either way, losing the drum thunder was a mistake for the sound of Arsis. But why blame the drummer? The new guitarist’s technique gave Cesca little room to work with.

A new level: quo vadis?

We Are The Nightmare offers almost no churning rhythm riffs throughout the entire CD. Instead, lead riffs are strewn about the halls of the aural gallery, leaving the listener dizzied but never battered. (I have actually gotten nauesous while listening the counter rhythms in “A Diamond For Disease.” This is something even Meshuggah have never managed to pull off for me!) The change in riff styling should definitely be viewed as a progression, but I hope that Malone gets his sense of “heavy” back on Arsis’s next release. A combination of the two is what United In Regret strove to be, and in my opinion, that album came much closer to the vision.

Take a listen at how the calm composure in Malone’s riffing has gone completely out the window. From United In Regret:

This track, entitled “…And The Blind One Came,” was long my least favorite on the CD. After having let it digest for a long time, I now think that I disliked it because it was so damn good at what it did. That intro riff is perfectly ugly. I picture a carcass trying to dance, or being animated to dance. The song is sightless and horrifying. A sense of doom pervades the riff, in no small part due to VanDyne’s “maddening beat of vile drums.”

Now compare with the furiousness of this riff, obviously from the new album.

Technically impressive, to be sure, but perhaps a mite bit uninspired? Maybe because it’s a textbook example of the Necrophagist (technical death metal gods to this day) formula. Listen, and pay special attention not only to the flourishing leads that open each song, but also to the snare-heavy pedal tone riffing that follows. The songs differ only slightly in their third riffs (up until the chorus in the Arsis piece, with is anthemic and catchy in a way Necrophagist would never attempt).

C’mon, James, you can do better!

Epilogue/Metalogue

This review itself was pretentiously technical, which should at least partly discredit its scorn and criticism. I’ve spun the album only about 10 times so far, and am still within the first week of ownership. I’m certain that int he weeks to come, I’ll soften on it, and I’ll love it.

All in all, We Are The Nightmare is a solid album. The problem is, it’s not their old material. But I admit that’s more a problem in me as a fan than it is in them as songwriters.

I’ve already bought this CD twice, by the way, because I love this band so much.