Successful Architects Bet on Tried-and-True Recipes! (2012)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 3 October 2026

Photos: Jerneja Jerak

Location: Ljubljana, Gala Hala
Concert date: October 28, 2012
Attendance: 150 – 200
Ticket price: €20

That mediocrity is only for those who don’t want to climb out of the gray swamp of nothingness is something the sparrows are already chirping from the branches around here. After the first Architects raid on the plains of the Slovenian valley of Šentflorjan, though, it was clear the Never Say Die tour could only have been an overture to something better. The long-awaited return, practically to the scene of the crime, confirmed it, except this time the epicenter of the action had shifted into the alternative guts of Metelkova. The Architects are the schizophrenic by-product of musical evolution from Brighton, and this time they showed up with a colorful crew of British comrades-in-arms and musical kindred spirits. Besides the celebrated headliners, the lineup also had the lesser-known Heights and a band on the rise, youngsters going by the name While She Sleeps. And given the reputation the Architects name carries, which, if you believe nothing but the press and fall for the poorly articulated opinions of the kids, is a synonym for fun, great vibes and an adrenaline ride down the slides of pleasure. Since it’s always smart to check words live, we had to check those serenades of praise live ourselves, too.

October temperatures had already dropped hard, and Ljubljana was drenched in the cold, prickly drizzle of autumn rain, so there was precious little runway-style loitering in front of Gala’s doors. The eager young “brutes” soon claimed the front battle lines under the well-besieged stage, which the youngsters from Heights stepped onto first, with Swiss precision. The quartet from Welwyn Garden City served up a pretty lukewarm appetizer of post-hardcore that was neither distinct enough nor manly enough. After three years of existence, this British echelon of artillerymen firing shells in the caliber of Underoath, Comeback Kid, the already-mentioned Architects and whatnot even boasts a debut the critics have praised quite a bit, Dead Ends. The best of the Isles, at least according to the jury of the British magazine Metal Hammer, which crowned the foursome with a Golden Gods Awards 2012 nomination, is a rather obscure-sounding conglomerate of something that wants to sound like manly HC but doesn’t have enough balls or resolve. A mid-flight swap behind the mic didn’t help either. In May the lads kicked vocalist Thomas Debaere out of the band, and the one pretty sure of his vocal cords turned out to be bassist Alex monty, who is anything but a charismatic magnet for pulling in crowds. The pretty sterile set did serve up the standard warm-up for the upper half of the body, and by Eye For An Eye the crowd was already launching into a stale, very Slovenian mosh pit. The first jumpers stretched their groins and, in true “pussy diver” fashion, hunted for the rhythmically right moment to leap onto their friends’ heads. Heights, in the style of Cavalera’s “brilliant” Soulfly, are more like driving down the highway in second gear with the pedal to the floor while the rhythm section keeps yanking the handbrake. Post-apocalyptic excuses are so overused I wouldn’t even touch them, but still, the show put on by the seasoned loiterers didn’t get under my skin. That means Alex Monty on vocals and bass, the guitar duo of zen-maned Dean Richardson and the rather unintriguing Tom Green, and not even the pretty average drummer Tom Hutton lifted his share above the baseline. Even something feeding off the stereotypes of the NYHC garage, going by the name Forget, didn’t help me loosen up. I immediately thought someone should pass a law against the mental assault of crowds by stale copying of Hatebreed and Sick Of It All, with the caveat that instead of steroids they dropped a dash too many sedatives and painkillers into the chemical cocktail. For the sake of good taste and decency, though, the effect on the Ljubljana crowd was well above expectations, and there was no outpouring of pus or abscesses of grumbling to be detected. The title track of the debut, Dead Ends, is a very catchy specimen of craftsman musicianship, but it doesn’t budge past a two on the fun-o-meter. The castrated rat-tune of the newer Stray Rats improved the taste a bit, since the guys upped the dose of grit, dirty distortion and mangled guttural screams to the rescue. The cockney bullshit, after Oceans and a final reminder that they’d be signing records and shirts after the show and maybe even have time for a beer, with The Lost And Alone as the cherry on top, somehow fizzles out into a fairly successful moment, the closing of the first item on the day’s agenda.

What followed was supposed to be a lot more articulate, and the half-hour wait being worth standing in the rain was confirmed right away by the completely different stage presence of the Sheffield outfit While She Sleeps. Under the guise of tattooed modern-day metalcore, they bring a distinctive whiff of British working-class pessimism and realistic edge. Armed with the records This Is the Six and North Stands For Nothing the guys have successfully recut their primordial influences of Underoath, Refused, Alexisonfire, Comeback Kid and Slipknot, with undertones of more melodic alternative in the manner of Foo Fighters and Marilyn Manson, contemporary music’s enfant terrible. The opening stampede of While She Sleeps lets you know the guys have no intention of messing around looking for a spare gear, so they just go all out. The balanced punch of the guitar tandem of Sean Long and Mat Wlsh is nicely backed up by Aaran McKenzie’s just-dirty-enough bass and Adam Savage’s thoughtful metrics behind the kit. It’s a completely different story from Heights when it comes to the vocals. Lawrence Taylor might remind you of the first throat of Bullet For My Valnetine, but the long-haired, tattooed center of the band is really the center of gravity, steering the chaotic dance of devil-exorcism damn well in the right direction! The energetic play with the crowd pays off in wild stage diving and a serial release of the brakes among the kids, who didn’t find Gala the least bit too cramped for letting their libidos loose. The North Stands For Nothing trips on the recipes of As I Lay Dying, and a disharmonic bundle of adrenaline, squeals, nicely executed breaks and world-weariness steers the armored truck for a moment even in the direction of Deftones. Sexy and not a bit boring! The piano’s suspense is brought in, in a somewhat generic way, by Our Courage, Our Cancer, but sweat is still sliding off the stage by the gallon, and While She Sleeps cast a pretty technically flawless spell over the Slovenian crowd, who are eating out of their hands. Then something ominous and damn sweet! “I put my trust in poison, to teach me how to live. / I put my trust in darkness, to teach me how to see,” booms the throat of the possessed vocalist, and Until The Death, as if woven from the fingers of Iowa’s best export product, Slipknot, though with added melody and hit-appeal, tears its unstoppable way into the cortex of the action at Metelkova. No to bowing to the system! No to servile submission! No to a sentence of a black future! And that’s the bloody thread of the debut This Is The Six, which strives to be heard and grasped by the masses. And since, as noted, music is these days also listened to with the eyes, stage magic can’t be missing from the preaching. While She Sleeps have it, and what they lack they make up for with confidence, so the scalps of the crowd pile up behind the lads’ belts. Trophies only confirms it, and after the last three gems from the Sheffield landing party, one truly exceptional moment of the night closes in the style of the greats with Reunite. The lads take a dignified bow in farewell, both to the Slovenian crowd and to their musical comrades-in-arms and co-creators of the evening.

That the moment everybody had been waiting for was approaching was proven by a damn long soundcheck, which, as befits stars, came with the shifting of the evening’s closing act. The stars of British metalcore, Architects, after eight years of existence and name changes from Inharmonic to Couting The Days and finally to the pretty notorious name that brought them fame and a bit of cash, take their time getting ready, because the whole thing has to be flawless and worth the kids’ money, right? It was hard to believe, but only a year after the record The Here And Now the guys managed to move forward and record Daybreaker. It steers them not only deeper into the waters of socio-political engagement, but also sees them molt from mere party-starters into post-hardcore heralds of life in the new millennium. A stylistic return to the roots of the band’s sound was also supposed to show they’re better than mere comparisons with Bring MeThe Horizon, and a slightly more massive, heavier sound was supposed to shake Ljubljana, too.

The intro alone, and the entry into one of the better songs of the previous record, Day In Day Out, lets you know the guys are well calibrated. On one side stands the guitar link and central axis of the band, Tom Searle, with touring guitarist Josh Middleton, the band’s not-quite-full-member concert add-on, countering him on the right side of the stage as part of the job. Behind the bass, Alex Dean, briefly absent, proves himself again, and Tom’s brother Dan commands his drum kit. Besides the organic bond between man and drumhead, technical aids are also in play, triggers and sampler reinforcements, and screaming singer Sam Carter, sporting a slightly shorter haircut, defends his status as one of the most penetrating vocalists. The machine is well oiled, and the kids fall into a trance before the first chorus, which is, I can’t help it, astonishing, but at the same time slightly suspicious. Is it once again just the main course that throws the youth off balance, or is it really the quality that drives the underage flyers onto the stage, where they jam up before jumping into the sea of people? Judging by the posing and the angling for cameras, it was clear the truth about a sincere outpouring of emotion lies somewhere in between. Still, the band’s roadie had plenty of work, both shooing away dreamy bluzators and tuning guitars and catching nearly unplugged cables. With Dethroned the hands on the calendar of events move to 2009, and the dissonant cacophony of predictable screamy banging on already-heard pots sets the crowd moving in a bizarre dance. The far more melodious and articulate Learn To Live shifts the proceedings into mental harmony, with Sam delivering his screamy mantra so damn ironically, but I doubt anyone heard it. “Pick yourself back up and learn to live, / Stop caring, stop thinking. / Picked yourself back up and learn to live, /
The grass is greener on the other side, so don’t give up on life. / Never back down, do this for yourself,
You don’t need anyone to get you where you deserve.” And only now comes the time to promote the new record. Daybreaker gets its christening performance in Ljubljana with the song Daybreak. There are no big departures from the past, to be honest, but it’s true the lads have learned instant approaches to achieving maximum results very well. Follow The Water, in this melodic beauty, rebelliously rises above mere comfort. The album Hollow Crown comes across as a kind of call to discord, and the hardcore dancers windmill their way to the edge of the stage like soulless husks. The band members see off the Ljubljana zombie parade with ironic, cynical laughter at a bunch of kids who made it to the stage but stopped there with no real idea where, between the pauses, to penetrate through the air into the bowels of Gala. I think stage diving only makes sense if the brave flyer knows at least enough songs to know when it’s aesthetic to unleash and when it’s time for onstaging, if I may indulge in a few sarcastic neologisms … The further stampede of well-studied moves (at least on the band’s side) goes on in search of the right cherry on top. Neither Delete, Rewind nor the novelty Outsider Heart, still completely unknown to many, delivers it. A bit of kerosene on the flames of passionate burnout comes from the disharmonic »hit« Devil’s Island, which, with its screamo curtness, starts repeating already-heard emptiness, and I can barely wait for the regular part of the show to end with the final masterpiece of the album Hollow Crown, Early Grave. Just one encore follows and that will be that, well-informed sources tell me. After the much-praised opening song of the album Daybreaker, These Colors Don’t Run, the cavalry of island wunderkinder bids the Slovenian crowd a hasty farewell and heads off on its further journey across Europe. You might notice there are five albums on the list of these young British hopefuls by now, and there’s probably a damn good reason Architects so easily give up moments from the records Nightmare or from the follow-up released in 2007, Ruin. Nomen est omen, so Ljubljana was probably spared something good, I’d add, if I may be a little wicked …

Judging by the stale smell of sweat and clouds of endorphins, the night was undoubtedly a success. I’d stress, though, that we didn’t see or hear any serious peaks, but we did get a solid, formally correct core party, which honestly was enough for plenty of people. Neither the headliners nor the earlier stage-besiegers delivered any great architectural masterpiece – with the possible exception of While She Sleeps, who, I don’t know why, how or when, successfully got under my skin, and I can’t wash that stain of extreme fun out of my mind so easily or quickly. The choreography of the night was also above expectations, since the inflorescence of Slovenian brutes managed to liven up the evening with their bold little leaps and place it in the category of “fucking parties of the year”. As for my own reservations, I’d rather not repeat them, since that wouldn’t make sense. Anyway, the night was a success, and plenty of people will wistfully regret skipping one of the best approximations of what went down three years ago, with the difference that this time the banner of the extremes was defended only by an island division of well-schooled, damn well-oiled and aesthetically polished lads from metalcore’s schizophrenic garage. The scalps of the youngsters stay in Europe, and the Ljubljana crowd can tick off, with a clean heart and soul, one more name on this year’s list of above-average gigs!