Arceye
At First Light

Arceye seems to be a band that thrills many reviewers as their press material is filled with positive quotes about their music, the same goes for a search on the internet even though I found a few quite neutral opinions about the album along with all the positive ones. I think that one tangible positive note for this album is the cover artwork, everybody loves the wolf and we should have more of them. This all means that if I was writing this before even having heard the album I would have thought that it all shapes up nicely for a great album from this british quartet. Luckily (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) I am not effected by these opinions as I already know the rating and my opinion before reading any information about a band. So what about these guys then?

At First Light is their second album, it follows their debut from 2009. It is groovy thrash-/death metal with growly vocals and an overall groove. But there are variations to this with some nice soloing, some cool riffing, some keys, an instrumental track and so on. The vocalist is a bit of a weak point as his growling is quite dull without real feeling and his range when asked to vary his singing just isn’t good enough. Vocals is a weak point for these guys, the lack of variation isn’t. Speaking of stuff, the production and sound is excellent, nothing at all to complain about that. It is varied and it sounds very modern, very fresh compared to much that arrives today.

It is a fairly good album I would say, albeit it fails to really grab my undivided attention. It is one of those album that feels good to have as background somewhere not quite listening and not quite noticing but still recognising its qualities. I have listened to this album quite a few times now and haven’t really found what many other reviewers have. To me this isn’t the album of the decade, the month, the year or whatever. It is a good album to listen to but so is many other albums and this just does not stand above those. I can believe that fans of the groovier modern thrash metal genre might have a differing opinion to mine but it is only speculation and I cannot base a rating or anything else in a review on that so I have to go with what I can quantify and to me this album is one of those that belongs in the middle of our scale. They do deserve a bit of a plus but not so much that I would call this a really good album.

Some tracks are really good like the opening title track and Sirius which are two that I can enjoy a lot. There are good parts in most other tracks but the album just don’t tie it together for me. So I can assume that if you enjoy the so-called groove metal or the modern thrash metal then you’ll like this album, maybe even like it a lot. If you don’t, I recommend that you sample it as much as you can before buying it. At First Light is an extremely well made effort and it probably appeals to those that are into the genre so if you are I think you might find a real treat in this album.

HHHHHHH