Arsis

Unwelcome (Nuclear Blast Records)
release date: 4/30/2013
by Mike Delano

The hate brigade came down pretty hard on this ridiculously talented VA tech death crew’s last record, 2010’s Starve for the Devil. If you believe everything you read, it couldn’t compare to their old stuff, but to me, it was a killer slice of late-period Carcass worship. It had some playfulness and experimentation, and that’s necessary for any band to stand out from the pack in the tech metal swamp. This title track from the follow-up record Unwelcome continues along that vein (the slow riff during the chorus is solid gold), although, since there’s an inexplicable cover of “Sunglasses At Night” elsewhere on the album, it may be time to rethink that playfulness I was mentioning.
(www.nuclearblast.com)