Arsis
A Diamond for Disease
Willowtip
You can dance... for inspiration
Who’da thunk a couple of guys from Virginia would turn out to be the saviors of Scandinavian melodic death metal? When Arsis—the duo of guitarist-vocalist James Malone and drummer Michael Van Dyne—dropped A Celebration of Guilt upon an unsuspecting public last year, the acclaim was unanimous. Deity-level precursors such as Arch Enemy, At the Gates and even Carcass were mentioned in the same breath as the fledging group. With anticipation running high for a new project, the band has responded at last—with a ballet?
OK, not exactly. But the title track of Arsis’ new EP was in fact written for Ballet Deviare, a New York City-based company that has previously pirouetted to Opeth and Dark Tranquillity. Truth be told, the 13-minute track could easily have made for three or four shorter tunes, but a penchant for Maiden has clearly given Arsis a strong handle on managing epic-scale structures. Falling somewhere between Shagrath and Angela Gossow in the vocal department, Malone cuts a clean swath across his own towering walls of guitar; Van Dyne underpins the proceedings with admirably mechanistic tumult.
Were the maudlin sentiments of “Roses and White Lace” screeched by someone in a black suit, red necktie and mascara—or if the song contained the words “porcelain” or “butterfly”—it would be cause for alarm, but Malone’s parched croak (and an ascending riff borrowed from “Heartwork”) instead generates a giddier brand of guignol. Opening with a reference to the band’s earlier disc, “The Promise of Never” works similar turf to similar ends, yielding at least one classic couplet: “I gave you roses/ Be careful of the fucking thorns.”
—Steve Smith
