ARX - The Speed Of Dark
December 16, 2014, 9 years ago
(Independent)
In August of 2013 we reviewed this South African band's last album, Ordo Ab Pax (hmm, still don't know what that means), and said generally good things (gave it a 7.5), although a major thorn in my side was the band's utilization of awkwardly delivered clean vocals. And look at that, here on their new full-length, there is a significant drop in the amount of said clean vocals (now that's advocacy journalism), although I'm left throwing my arms up in the air at the decision to make this album much longer than the last, The Speed Of Dark clocking in at over an hour, which is just too long for anyone and definitely prevents it from going past a 7.5 (it is worth sticking around late for great tunes like "What Could've Been," but it's a long slog to get there). But check out this band's improvement: absolutely killer mid-album instrumental "The Void" kicks ass all over everything on their last disc, which was good, but the Fear Factory/Machine Head-isms of it didn't invite a lot of repeat listens. Here, there are more shades and hues, the band maturing while getting less melodic (again, goodbye clean vocals!), and even the clean vocals on cuts like "In Pieces" don't seem to be trying so hard and instead have relaxed into a sort of strained, tense place that works a bit better than before. Now the band spends more time thrashing like Overkill than trying to do the Fear Factory soaring chorus thing, and we're all better off for it. Now, if they can bring together the best of both of these albums (the last album's more economic run time, and this album's thrashier approach), we'd really be talking.