Architects
Hollow Crown

"Hollow Crown", this is the literal meaning of the title, and according to the band, in an interview with Rock Sound about a year ago, the album talks about a world where there are people who can't get what they deserve, while others find themselves living with a success that is anything but earned.

Does it mean that "Hollow Crown" is an autobiographical album? In part, yes.

The English combo, hailing from Brighton, the same town as Bring Me The Horizon, has already produced two notable successful underground albums, "Nightmares" and "Ruin", which elevated them as one of the few European bands capable of combining the dissonance and technique of Math with the attitude of a fierce, ultra-heavy modern hardcore/metal. However, unlike their countrymen, true success has never quite arrived for them, and it's precisely in this third album, their most mature and best-produced one yet, that this anger and frustration are unleashed, decisively releasing the tension felt in the first two albums, since the leitmotif of the record is this constant feeling of dissatisfaction, anger, pain, and loss, which can also be detected in the more melodic episodes.

To wit, if "Nightmares" was the honest tribute of a band still in its early (but not very first) stages to groups like The Dillinger Escape Plan and Sikth, yet immature from a songwriting perspective, its successor, "Ruin", although praised by critics, represents in my opinion a real misstep, with an unworthy production and a handful of not quite unforgettable songs, boring and disjointed; but as we know, the third album is the album of the leap in quality, and fortunately, this time it happened: "Hollow Crown" is a powerful, angry album, simpler in riffing but no less technical, with several tracks inspired by both hardcore (the opener, "Early Grave", is clearly the child of "Moments Over Exagerate" by Poison The Well) and extreme metal, with tempo changes and ultra-down-tuned guitars ("Dead March" sounds like a Meshuggah track), chorus and dissonances not overly accentuated but still present (the anthem "Follow The Water" or the wonderful "Numbers Count For Nothing", the best of the album) and a drive, regarding both clean vocals and harsh singing, that is mind-blowing.

The lyrics, despite mainly dealing with personal experiences, also delve into existential themes, far from optimistic, and remain clearly impressed as they are written without the adolescent vein that distinguished "Ruin", and it's also thanks to this that memorable passages abound; finally, even the title track, a romantic scream/ballad, although deviating from their usual production due to the simplicity of its structure, is definitely a great song, where the singer demonstrates a vocal ability considerably above average in the "core" scene, with inspired and powerful choruses.

The aforementioned album, therefore, although not free from fillers ("We're All Alone" and "One of These Days" above all) is absolutely enjoyable and, if you're a fan of these sounds, it will become an indispensable piece of your discography. If you enjoy the album, take the time to see them live, where they deliver even more than on record, and you'll agree with me that even an extra star for this album is not entirely undeserved.