Arcadia has released their latest album In Ruins. A 12 track, spotlessly produced and played creation that hammers and growls its way into your soul. It really is an excellent-sounding album, have this cranking through your sound system or blasting out if your headphones will have you grinning as you are totally immersed in the music.
The guitars are brutal but crisp and precise with plenty of melody and variety. Jesse Graetz smashes the hell out of the drums, in a measured and calculating rage, everyone else in the band Tim Giddings, Jish Rigby.
And Dany Willemsen handles the guitars that really pack a punch but also wail, shred and scream with real personality that shows off their technical ability. Vocals are handled in lead by Tim Giddings and Dany Willemsen backs up and is mainly growl but do bring some clear harmonic singing, mostly during the choruses. Arcadia has said that Trivium and Killswitch Engage are major influences on their music and this is very clear all throughout, and some songs could easily be placed on either band’s albums.
Quite hard to pick standout tracks on this album as it is such a consistent release with no duds or weak songs at all apart from a couple of obligatory filler tracks. However, the two I did keep going back to is track 3 Fragile, which has some crushing riffs for instant Headbanging pleasure, with wonderful growls to satisfy, great hooks, great song.
The other track of greater quality is Wake Up, which has a slow booming build-up into a wicked riff that will have you saying ‘Hellyeah’. A wonderful melodic singing chorus makes this an excellent heavy metal song. One other track of note is Torn In Two mainly for its truly excellent highly catchy chorus. Arcadia do use breakdowns but thankfully sparingly and the sound is quite varied in all of them, staying clear away from the trap of overusing breakdowns.
I have to say this is an absolutely brilliant album by a very professional band. All the more impressive by the fact this is largely a metalcore album, a genre I am not normally a big fan of.
That really says something. A must-have for fans of this genre and still highly recommended for everyone else.
Arcadia: Facebook
Release Year: 2013
Label: self-released
Category: Album
Country: Australia
Reviewed by Chris Rankin
