After some years of confusion surrounding their future prospects, 2014 saw Architects back on top in a big way with the release of career-best album ‘Lost Forever // Lost Together’ and an ensuing world tour.
Preparing to hit the road in their homeland for their biggest headline run to date, including a sold-out stop at London’s legendary Camden Roundhouse, the group are clearly in celebratory mood as they reveal two previously unreleased songs from the album’s recording process. Drastically different in tone and sound, they nonetheless reflect perfectly the essence of the album they ostensibly weren’t quite good enough to find a place on.
A two-minute assault on the senses, “Shadow of a Doubt” is as relentlessly aggressive and thick as anything in the Architects canon, barely pausing for breath as it hammers home just how effortless good this band has become. Sam Carter’s fevered, explicit cry into its riff-centric intro is the ideal warning for a track that makes up for its lack of melody with hot anger and the kind of pitch-squeal augmented grooves that first made their presence felt on 2009’s ‘Hollow Crown’. What makes this group stand out among their contemporaries is the perfect balance struck between putting attention on both music and vocals, “Shadow of a Doubt” showcasing this perfectly with everything from a bass-lead break to a steamrolling scream-topped final breakdown section.
In complete contrast, “Untitled II” takes the reverb-drenched ambient moments of respite from ‘Lost Forever // Lost Together’ and brings them to the forefront. Built on Tom Searle’s shimmering guitars as its predecessor from the ‘Here and Now’ era was, the brief piece is largely instrumental and builds in a near post-rock fashion up to a towering distorted climax, with Carter finally joining the fray for but a moment. The lyrics are on the overly-sentimental side in their cries for self-belief and unity but delivered with the utmost conviction, and the whole song feels like one long and satisfying musical exhale.
The two songs are impressive and could have both worked well as part of the album itself, excluded perhaps for their short length rather than lack of quality (in the case of Untitled II, it may be that the admittedly superior similar interlude ‘Red Hypergiant’ was selected in its stead). They represent yet more evidence that Architects are among the brightest hopes for British, and indeed worldwide heavy music.
