It is not often that we have the pleasure to exclusively premiere a full-length EP, and whence Jan Wischkowski from Metal Promotions approached me this morning asking if I wanted to have the opportunity to premiere Arcturon in our pages, I immediately replied back with an affirmative answer and got back to work with a sense of deep loyalship.
Switzerland’s cold temperatures and desolate landscapes surely hold some impact in the unconscious mind, and Arcturon have suspiciously proven once again that it is possible to maintain the spirit awe-inspiring and prolific due to their tenacious willpower to viciously unleash upon us ‘Expect Us’, a remarkable and mesmerizing modern melodic death metal EP that overall, has a consistent personality and uniqueness of its own. Arcturon are one of those musical quartets that leave one wondering if there’s any limits at all when engineering a crossbreed between alternative guidelines within the death metal without falling into the boredom of recent Swedish metal acts, such as In Flames for instance…
Atmospheric and neo synthetic perhaps, ‘Expect us’ delines an astonishing musical vibe in a unpredictable manner, where guitars ingeniously shred as a cutting blade to then smoothly hold their aptitude and revert to mid-paced riffs, a stronghold emerges between melodic and wicked choirs like it was a twisted game of some kind, still consciously provoking our mindset to explore them furthermore into the next dimension. Skilled and perceptible drumming spreading throughout the entire EP, not necessarily undermining as it insidiously happened in other numerous occurrences, here the drumming imparts to remain strengthened not by a blend of storming sustained tension that overpowers the entire release, by alternate as an equilibrium that harmonizes the conceptual writing as it was a nightingale in which one instrument complements the other. Bass lines are predominant and do not play a minor, secondary role as often expected in an act of the genre, then again, vocals aren’t stageable either, restrained to a single, underlying chord, and it flows perfectly from raspy and aggravating, to melodic open singing that transmits an odd feeling of desoliness and sorrowful agony.
Arcturon amazingly well executed music counterparts with a unification of different elements forged into one single formula, which is their very own. It is unbearably difficult to pinpoint them to anything else, or any other bands that might start out close enough to the kind of melodic death metal they so uniquely portray.
- ‘My Treasure’
- ‘Expect Us’
- ‘A Restless Soul’
- ‘Rowan’
‘Expect Us’ has been released on October 24th, 2014, via Supreme Chaos Records and marks their 10th year of existence. It has been recorded at Fascination Street Studios and produced by mastermind Johan Örnborg (which also co-worked previously with the Swedish Arch Enemy, Soilwork, and Amon Amarth just to name a few).
[blockquote cite=”Arcturon”]The recordings are finished and we are super happy. Each one of the four songs has turned out to be absolutely sensational and has its very own character. We tried out everything we felt like, without thinking too much. Each song has received the attention it deserves throughout the whole process, and you can hear it. We couldn’t be happier![/blockquote]
Arcturon made their debut in 2007, whence their ‘Breaking Walls’ demo came out, bringing them a great deal of attention and earning them stage support while playing live alongside with Six Feet Under, Nile, Finntroll and Belphegor.
The full-length debut album ‘The Eight Thorns Conflict’ was released in 2010. It was recorded at the legendary Abyss Studios in Sweden, and produced by Jonas Kjellgren (which also produced albums from Hypocrisy, Scar Symmetry, and Sonic Syndicate). Shortly after the release of ‘The Eight Thorns Conflict’, Arcturon went on a European Tour as support for Rotting Christ and Omnium Gatherum.
The quartet’s second full-length, ‘An Old Storm Brewing’, was also recorded and produced at the Abyss Studios, and released this time by Supreme Chaos Records on February 8th, 2013.
‘Expect Us’ is now available for preorder and costs merely $ 8.99 (roughly $ 23,000 COP or $11.50 USD).
With gratitude to Arcturon and Jan Wischkowski from Metal Promotions, we are inordinately proud to host the world premier of their full stream EP, ‘Expect Us’!
