When A Celebration of Guilt came out in 2004, blogs were still just websites and they were all over that album like flies on shit. I still had yet to perfect the art of music piracy so I went out and bought it blind based solely on recommendations (I’d never do that today). And holy shit, it was ripping! I was still down with most melodic death metal at that point, but all that was happening right around that time was sappy metalcore a la Killswitch Engage. This Arsis band was so much better than that! That chubby Malone dude could play the shit out of his guitar. And a year later, A Diamond For Disease dropped and made the hair on my neck stand up again. Righteous!
Then I slowly grew to hate Arsis. Canceled shows, diva frontman issues, two iffy albums, Darren “I swear I play for the song, really” Cesca on the drums (here’s a comically bad writeup I did about all this for an indie music mag/blog at my alma mater two years ago — I said that Elliott “I Stabbed Myself in the Chest” Smith was more metal than frontman James Malone) — I just got sick of them, sick of how they weren’t living up to the promise of never of the first album and following EP. Somewhat predictably, Malone self-destructed (though it was anorexia, not c-c-c-cocaine b-b-baby), his whole band quit. I figured Arsis had run its course and pretty much left them for dead.
Then out of nowhere (and not even that long after We Are The Nightmare), we have Starve For The Devil. Like I would probably do with an old girlfriend in the lean month of January, I gave Arsis one more chance to satisfy me. Ooooo, and it feels so good.
Starve for the Devil is a sweet album and their best since the Diamond For Disease EP. Malone stopped taking himself so fucking seriously and returned to doing what he does best: flamboyantly playing the shit out of his pink-fringed guitar. I’m almost sorry I gave them shit about their eyeliner in the “Forced to Rock” video…almost.
I’ve spent about six weeks with this album now. As much as I really liked it off the bat, it keeps growing on me. It’s unapologetic, cock-rocking death metal. This sub-genre isn’t really my thing at all anymore, but James Malone sounds like he’s having fun for the first time in the history of the band, and it’s infectious.
Half the tracks are total knockouts, picking the best parts and cutting the filler from the last 15 years of melodeath: “Forced to Rock” out-Bodoms Children of Bodom, and “Beyond Forlorn” is the best Arch Enemy song since…well, only good Arch Enemy song since I heard “Ravenous” when I was 15. “Sable Rising” is like Storm of the Light’s Bane-era Dissection with better musicianship and less anti-cosmic propaganda. And “March for the Sick” and “From Soulless to Shattered” are simply the best Arsis songs written since 2006.
A huge factor here is the return of Mike van Dyne on the drums. Like all great cock-rock drummers, he knows his place: rock-solid, fist-pumping beats that stay out of the all-star guitar player’s way (We Are the Nightmare could’ve been a much better album if he stayed in the lineup, looking back at it this way). I mean that as a compliment of the highest order, and I think he’s an exceptionally tasteful skinsman.
Anyone who like Arsis because they’re a standout tech band, you’re not going to like this album. The guitar playing is still technically impressive, but not as wanky. Malone lays off the dick measuring, and the songwriting is much stronger and more streamlined than it has been. Less pretentious, and way more fuckin’ fun.
Likewise, Malone’s lyrics are much lighter. Not so many overt references to ex-girlfriends, but plenty of insightful, tasteful (hah!) lyrics about his eating disorder and associated emotional issues. And as always, lots of old song titles masquerading as actual lyrics; I don’t think Malone is fooling anybody when he uses them to place-hold parts where he ran out of original ideas. If he had an unintelligible vocal style, nobody would know the fucking difference anyway, so I’ll give him a pass. But mostly it’s good to hear that he’s doing better inside his own head.
Starve For The Devil will be remembered as a polarizing Arsis album. But personally, I don’t think they could’ve released a better one at this point. It’s neither an attempt at re-hashing previous successes nor a total sell-out/departure. Just a bitchin’ melodic death metal album, and they’re still better than most in this game. Now if I could just finally fucking see them in concert without a cancelled date…
- Liam
