Becoming The Archetype

I Am

The fifth album by Georgia-spawned Christian metalcore quintet Becoming The Archetype features absolutely zero founding members, and only one member who was in the band on their debut album. Does this matter? Not really; new frontman Chris McCane has a thick-necked bellow every bit the equal of his predecessor, Jason Wisdom, and rhythm guitarist/clean vocalist Seth Hecox is still there, as he has been since 2004. And the songs are still… Well, no. The songs have changed a lot this time out. The strings, choirboy clean vocals, horns and other extravagances of their last album, 2010’s Celestial Completion, have been scoured away in favor of full-blast, breakdown- and low-end-obsessed deathcore with the occasional Black Dahlia Murder-ish melodic death-metal anthem (“The War Ender”) thrown in. So anybody worried BTA were turning into some kind of Devin Townsend-esque prog-wank monstrosity can relax; they’re back to moshin’ for Jesus full time. Fans of progressive/technical death metal will find a few things here to be pleased about, as there are some impressively squiggly guitar solos to be found on I Am, plus the semi-obligatory piano-and-electronics instrumental (“The Machine Killer”). But overall, this is a more muscleheaded, ferocious album than its predecessor.

Solid State http://www.solidstaterecords.com

“The War Ender”