Having already teased acclaim and attention with their debut EP a couple of years back, UK metallers Arkdown give them a real shove with its successor, The Calling. Unleashing five uncompromising, seriously predacious cuts of metalcore seeded hostility as stylish as they are rabid the new EP is the declaration of a band ready to take on all comers.
Cast in the steel of their hometown Sheffield hailing Arkdown has been on a steady ascent through the British metal ranks since emerging in 2015. The well received EP, Path, lit up the underground metal scene with its 2016 release whilst live the band’s reputation has only risen as alongside their own shows they have shared stages with the likes of Fit for an Autopsy, Oceans Ate Alaska, Martyr Defiled, Kingdom of Giants, A Night in Texas, and Shields. The Calling is their next bold and impressive step and challenge to the higher echelons of the British metal frontline and further afield.
Though metalcore based, the Arkdown sound is a rich union of flavours, death and melodic metal colluding with rapacious grooves and merciless aggression across that instinctive bed. It makes for tracks which even as they directly assault equally fester in the imagination all twisting and turning with imaginative adventure as quickly shown by EP opener, Wake Up. The initial calm of its intro is soon squashed under the following weight of riffs and rhythms from which vocalist Kyle Dawson enticingly scowls and the guitars of Mike Dyson and Mike Walker spin senses ensnaring webs of antipathy wired with fine melodic thread. Swiftly a diversity of sound and vocal attack mingle in the outstanding trespass leaving ears ringing and pleasure greedily rising.
The following It Calls Me instantly wraps the listener in spirals of contagiously intrusive grooving, the swinging beats of Alex Roberts taking skilled pot shots as again the throat raw variety coated assault of Dawson erupt in animosity and magnetism. With the eager yet brooding basslines of Ed Morley as potent as the invasive enterprise of the guitars, the track grabs best track honours as it further ignited the passions before Mirrors embraces the senses in its own infectious guitar wiring as winds of discontent and dark reflection ravage. As its predecessors, the track is a captivating roar of craft and enterprise built on an array of individual agility and as those before, another mighty reason to devour the Arkdown sound.
The closing pair of Five Years and Falling brings the EP to a rousing close. The first is a sonic wrath within a cauldron of melodic intensity, uncaging grooves and sonic rancor with an intrusive yet deft hand whilst its successor while being the calmest moment within The Calling, indeed a haunting seduction of imagination, it is also a tempest of conflict and venomous ideation as mercurial and volatile as it is tantalising.
Giving five tracks which increasingly fascinate as they corrode the senses, The Calling is a striking and increasingly irresistible encounter from a band surely poised to stir up real fuss with their dynamic, dramatic and deviously compelling sound.
The Calling is out Friday 2nd November.
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Pete RingMaster 31/10/2018
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
The EP opens up with new single Oracles. Instantly ears are under a barrage of predacious rhythms but equally are wrapped in a wiry mesh of grooves hunted by ravenous riffs. Vocals come with matching force and attitude but soon reveal great diversity as clean strains alternate and unite with throaty squalls. Already that richness of sound within its metalcore breeding is working away, enticing and intriguing as simultaneously other aspects trespass the senses. Evolving through more placid but no less gripping moments before the track’s rock ‘n’ roll explodes it is an outstanding start and appetiser to the fresh impetus in the rise of Black Water Chemistry
The following Hysteria surges through ears with punk ‘n’ roll rancor, beats thumping with flirtatious violence as group shouts and urges accompany individual temptation. It is a seriously enjoyable and insatiable trespass emulated in its own way by successor Golden Rats but given a whole new web of twists and turns to become scorched by and addicted too. Both tracks reveal more of the bolder hunger and adventure in the band’s sound; exploration further stretched and exploited within the invasively mercurial Death Cab. As its punk heart bellows and ensnares like a malicious Shevils, the band’s rock ‘n’ roll instincts gains momentum, the great blend of vocals following the imaginative endeavour. Wiry grooves and the brooding growl of the bass only add to the unbridled magnetism brewed and devoured.
From the moment the EP’s title track looms right up from its distant entrance attention was not only hooked but chained to what was to follow. Wiry tendrils of guitar wrap around ears immediately, senses slapping beats alongside and once the first track hits its voracious stride and the vocals of Targett unleash their incitement, the deal between lust and the devil’s music roaring from the speakers was done. Swiftly the singer impresses with a throat abrasing attack and venomous delivery but it is when she breaks into a glorious clean delivery that realisation at her talent is inescapable. Before then guitarists Callan Hughes and Jay Bacon gnaw at and chew on the senses, twisting and turning with grooves as their hooks pierce with imagination as the swinging rhythms of drummer Willem Mason-Geraghty infest body and spirit just as potently. The track is immense and no better way to succumb to the first abusive seduction of VNDTA.
The excellent start only continues as The Project follows, its electronically hued entrance easily stirring keen attention before opening up into a rapacious almost carnivorous prowl. Metalcore meets groove metal as things intensify, many more strains of sound adding to the menace and imagination seizing trespass. Something akin to a fusion of Poison The Well, As I Lay Dying and Devildriver, the track gnaws and increasingly pleasures the senses, a success only escalating as the funkier throes of In My Jail tease and invade next. A beguiling web of styles and flavours, the track alone reveals the bold invention at the heart of Hampered and the expansive hunger in their sound which does not always get the chance to blossom as it might across the release. Here it is in full bloom, plaintive vocals and hungry sounds uniting in a ravenous assault of irritable yet severely infectious and predatory enterprise.
Best track honours are seized by Splitter next, the rhythmic entrapment of Gumpoldsberger and Stirner inescapable from its opening strains and only intensified by the rolling attacks and belligerent grumble of drums and bass thereon in. Spice loaded grooves and a general rock ‘n’ roll swing only add to the track’s might with only the clean vocals for some reason and for once not quite connecting. Nevertheless it is a storming encounter which alone could have sparked an appetite for the band’s sound but is more than backed by the likes of Aurora and Phoenix. The first is an atmospheric tempting with alluringly portentous shadows around a rhythmic resonance, a union beguiling ears and imagination before its dark side rises up in invasive riffs and sonic trespass. That also brings a melodic and electronic enterprise which suggestive mystique setting up the adventurous rock ‘n’ roll of the second with the added attraction of female vocals and melody encased endeavours.
The potent starts quickly has ears keenly attentive, recent single Counter Culture stirring their appetites further with its metal bred imagination and punk infused quarrel. Melodic twists and clean vocal union with the rawer snarling tones of Campbell brings richer intrigue and captivation, the bass of Steve Cogden prowling it all with a brooding menace as the song grows an increasingly compelling web of flavours and imagination.