After two years of pretty much silence since the release of previous release, Trilogy, Irish musician John Bassett has returned with a new slice of Arcade Messiah temptation. Hell By Default is that offering, the declaration of a new captivating breath to his sound and songwriting and an ear grabbing EP making a rather potent teaser to a new album in the works.
Already renowned before Arcade Messiah as the frontman/songwriter of KingBathmat, Bassett himself says that ‘After a couple of very difficult years, I’ve finally managed to get back to making music, the new Arcade Messiah sound is more song focused with vocals…” That was the first surprise as previously the Sligo based songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer’s project has been an instrumental adventure and news which immediately intensified the intrigue as fruitful experiences with KingBathmat and SΔCRED ΔPE as well as an acoustic album under his own name proved vocals was another potent string to Bassett’s creative bow.
Equally there is a new hue to the Arcade Messiah sound, a lighter multi-flavoured flume of melodic imagination and contagious hookery which comes with something of a KingBathmat lining but one which colludes with and enhances rather than defuses the established progressive shadow haunted explorations of Bassett’s project. Its first three albums and their union as Trilogy in 2017 provided a cathartic venture for the imagination within a kaleidoscope of suggestive sounds for ears. Hell By Default is no different yet with its broader palette of enterprise is a bold new trail of exploration for Arcade Messiah.
The EP opens with its title track, a song taken from that new and fourth album planned for release later in the year. Hell By Default rises on a siren sonic call, a lure within which a teasing melodic hook soon beckons and the tones of Bassett coax. With every note and second, the song gently but firmly accelerates its urgency and temptation, soon hitting a keen stroll soaked in drama and fiery intensity. Rock and metal essences blend in the post rock nurtured flames which boldly consume and ignite upon the senses, dark almost rapacious tints soaking the creative trespass swiftly igniting imagination and appetite. It all unites for a thickly magnetic proposition and a greedy devouring of the return of Arcade Messiah.
The following Death X-Ray strolls in with a calmer and lighter character and touch, one fuelled by an instinctive tempting and organic catchiness which instantly gripped attention. As melodic infectiousness, vocal intimacy, and rhythmic persuasion continue to flourish, the track blossomed with greater radiance. Even so a shadowy courting to the melodic radiance and emotive heart on offer brings an edge and drama which only highlights the nagging prowess of hooks and grooved melodies, the result another track which only compelled pleasure and attention.
Hell By Default concludes with its instrumental version, a piece of creative inference which led thoughts to a different adventure to that highlighted by the words of Bassett in the opener and that is another attribute proven to its creator’s craft, songs can have a dual aspect and has the imagination constantly conjuring.
It has been a perpetual pleasure for us to engage in any Arcade Messiah encounter so far and the new EP only repeats that experience though through it there is a feeling that that new album could be the biggest thrill of all.
Hell By Default is available now @ https://arcademessiah.bandcamp.com/album/hell-by-default as a name your price download.
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Pete RingMaster 09/08/2019
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
It is a stunning start keenly and powerfully matched by the following Escapism. Relatively restrained in comparison, the track still prowls with a definite predatory intent; its rich body wrapped in melodic wiring as alluring as they are cutting. Best’s vocals equally have a calmer harmonic edge in a delivery as varied as the sounds around it, the band’s alternative rock instincts a thick colour to the inventive metal of the song. It is hard not to think of the track as a beast, stalking and preying on willing ears tempted by sonic plumage of inventive temptation.
The second track rises up from the formers portentous calm, almost hunting the senses and conjuring thoughts before rushing their barricades with vocal causticity amidst guitar spun wiring. The unpredictability and imagination of the band’s sound is soon properly unveiled, the song an aural kaleidoscope of flavours and sonic grains all designed to spread the tale and entice firm attention. Extreme and seductive textures continue to fluidly collude across the compelling proposition, the band’s progressive instincts seemingly honing the attributes of everything unveiled before Call to Arms stirred things up further with defiance and aggression. Yet it too brings an infectious melodic essence to its eruption, the mellower calms in between like the verbal and sonic narrator to the blossoming conflict. As the album itself both are tracks which reveal a little more by the listen, the richness of their narrative and bodies only thickened over time.
Drive follows and it too simply seizes ears from its first wiry throes before opening up its kaleidoscopic landscape, one tempestuous and as unsettled as it is creatively magnetic but a maelstrom of enterprise fluidly consuming and exciting ears. Classic hues join modern and progressive essences as the song blossoms by the twist and turn, Pickin’s vocals a strong and emotionally disturbed match for the cauldron of sounds around him. Both the opening pair of tracks has an inherent catchiness to them which is just as instinctive within next up Call Of The Judderman. Initially there is a common wiring between the third song and its predecessor, a core asylum of sonic endeavour but it soon unveils its own unique character and presence across three minutes of compelling confrontation.
Mother Nature Is a Serial Killer followed with a gentle coaxing of the senses, the melodic beckoning of guitar a quickly captivating intimation within which a surge of riffs brews, coming closer by the half breath before leading in another entangled incitement of texture, sound, and discontent; the latter a fire of vocal enmity. Of course as the song evolves cleaner and harsher elements become involved as that unpredictability already invigorating the first pair infests song and imagination to magnetic effect; it’s still discontent soaked calms as poignant and striking as its hostile ravishes of ears. Obzerv’s sound is wonderfully hard to pin down in a few words and the multi-flavoured roar of this song just epitomises that inescapable lure.
It is a stirring rousing start easily backed by the sonic tapestry that is Akardos. Classic metal lined progressive wiring initiates the temptation, a great slim but rich prowling gait emerging before those early hues inflame the melodic enterprise of Schramm and lead guitarist Aaron Vogelsberg. Darker, heavier shadows soon infest the contagion, the esurient beats of Sam Baw uniting with the magnetic pulsation and lure of Jules RoCkwell’s bass. New threads of sound and styles continue to be keenly woven into the magnetic web before Dark Valley takes over the enslaving of ears and appetite. There is a bedlamic edge to Schramm’s vocals which quickly captured the imagination, one which only escalates across the song as musically too it nurtures an anarchic pandemonium within its skilfully bred infestation; the result which is maybe something akin to Dog Fashion Disco and Mudvayne meets The New Jacobin Club but is truly unique to Sober Truth.
One of the album’s early singles is next up, Generation Z a fiery fusion of rock and metal with a snarl in its breath and irritability in its body yet equally a song sharing a reflective calm and spirited animation in its respective tempting and rousing roar. Maybe not as immediately gripping as its predecessors, the track only needed one round of its chorus to banish doubts, that carousing bred on the ever alluring presence of Joakem’s voice and keys before Illusory stepped forward to share its own intrigue lined exploits. It too has a dark edge and tone to its bold exploration of a shady world in sound and word but as potently a melodic radiance which only adds to the thick intimation.