Californian band Arkaik play a very creative, thoughtful and complex style of technical death metal and have been established themselves to make a modern day record entitled Nemethia. This well crafted album demonstrates a visualization of pure aggression, progressive layers of brutality and a album have the right amounts of technicality is just perfect as it should be. Their consistency to portray records about a series discussing meditative science fiction conceptualized albums with 2012’s Unique Leader Records Metamorphignition continues where it left off and this time, Nemethia is no different compared to past releases both lyrically and musically.
There’s some symphonic undercurrents that are traveling through the tech-death scene at the moment, as well as incorporating more high screams into the band’s overall sound, which is fitting given that much of Nemethia has its foot on the high-speed accelerator this time around, a marked difference from its chuggier nephew, Lucid Dawn. Nemethia does its best to hybrid the two sensibilities, the aural and technical assault of Metamorphignition and the headbanging groove of Lucid Dawn, and the result is that Arkaik may have unleashed its most focused and frenetic material to date. Arkaik one of the flag bearers for the current brand of tech-death under the Unique Leader label for some time. As such they function in a bright signal flare role as well, because it seems like Arkaik’s writing style comes to rest right on the pulse of their current scene.
They are able to pinpoint exactly where it is traveling next so as to perfectly line up with it. They absorb so much into their sound that it’s not just the usual wall of notes over relentless blasts but instead has become this almost perfectly spherical mass that has an obsession with the introspective concept behind Nemethia. From the heart-pounding opening of Occultivation” — which also kicks off the album as a whole, dispensing with an opening static vocal sample in about half a second in favor of a wall of sound — to the more traditional pit riffing and a million guitar segments in “Of Violence And Pestilence Born”, to when the group finally stretch their wings with the nine minutes of “Order Of Heiragon, the musicial branches are well utilized to set a wonderful journey experience of 42 minutes featuring the most matured, atmospheric and engaging albums in the band’s career. Nemethia is a masterful addition for another technical death metal masterpiece that is the band’s best material in years.
Overall Score: 9.0/10
Review by Jake Butler
