Blueprints in Pencil, Not Permanent Ink

England’s Architects are proof that just because you can scream doesn’t mean you can produce great death metal. Their last few albums have had way too much of vocalist Sam Carter’s incomprehensible and uneven top-of-the-lungs shouting—and it distracted from the uniqueness of the band, which lay in its ability to interweave smooth electronic threads with complex hard rock ribbons. In their latest release, Daybreaker, Architects appear on their way to the right formula.

As it turns out, Sam Carter has quite an effective, pure and interesting singing voice, as well as a knack for fitting melodies around the riffs generated by guitarists Tom Searle and Tim Hiller-Brook. Opening track “The Bitter End” starts out with Carter in the forefront, and it takes a full 90 seconds for the band and the “other” voice to kick in, but that sets the table for the rest of Daybreaker. There are still some moments of “classic” Architects, such as “These Colours Don’t Run,” which begins promising but turns out heavy on the heavy and light on the light. However, there are flecks of another impressive dimension of Carter’s voice: an effortless melodic scream. This returns in “Truth Be Told” with great success, and it makes you wonder if he’s teasing us.

But as Daybreaker goes on, it’s more evident the band has no interest in choosing just one sound to identify it, switching back and forth between the very mellow and the exceedingly heavy. And while it’s the less expected of the two extremes, the former quality displays a greater range of talent and originality. These moments make Daybreaker worth checking out—and possibly Architects’ strongest release to date.