Architects + Every Time I Die + Bless The Fall + Counterparts @ The Institute, 12th March 2015
It’s exactly a year, to the day, that I witnessed Architects tear apart the Institute in Birmingham. That show came only days after the release of their sixth studio album, ‘Lost Forever//Lost Together’. I was looking forward to see how these songs come across in a live setting, now that the dust has settled and fans have been given time to digest their new music. The excitement was doubled for many tonight with the news that heavyweights Every Time I Die would be supporting throughout their UK run.
Having arrived slightly late I miss the openers Bless The Fall and Counterparts and indeed the first song of Every Time I Die’s set, which of course I was disappointed about. Yet my disappointment didn’t last long because, as always, ETID put on one hell of a set, filled with fan favourites such as ‘We’rewolf’, ‘Floater’ and the ever brilliant ‘The New Black’, as well as a couple of songs thrown in from their latest album ‘From Parts Unknown’.
The best of which being ‘El Dorado’ which contains easily the riff of the night from guitarists Andy Williams and Jordan Buckley, the former looking more muscled than ever, ready to hulk out of the Aston Villa top he is sporting at any point.
Architects have matured fast as a band, becoming more impressive on every release, it’s a combination of this and their own huge amount of hard work, which means they are selling out dates all over Europe and the UK. Tonight is no exception and the venue is fit to burst by the time Architects are due on stage. Entering to huge cheers and applause from the crowd they burst straight into epic sounding ‘Broken Cross’ an excellent start, which sees the majority of the crowd in raptures already.
Front-man Sam Carter is already prowling the front of the stage with the whole crowd in his hand already. Though the not the biggest, his devilish growl means he is quite the imposing front-man. In fact, his voice seems quite strange coming from him but it’s definitely worth seeing such a friendly faced guy sound like he is about to rip your ears apart.
The energy displayed the band never lets up during the entirety of the set, with the crowd and the band bouncing off each other throughout. Another thing that never let up was the intensity of the music; don’t expect a slow song in an Architects gig. But people don’t see Architects to hear gentle songs; they see Architects to be pummelled by an endless tirade of ear drum pounding riffs and vocals. Every breakdown is huge, every riff is spot on and frankly they sound huge.
A year on from the release of ‘Lost Forever//Lost Together’ means songs like Gravedigger and Naysayer have become set staples and they both sound great tonight, massively improved by the crowd knowing every chorus chant and singing along with Sam. Older favourite, anger filled ‘These Colours Don’t Run’ with the lovely lyric ” you fucking pigs” beckoning in one of the biggest breakdowns of the evening.
Architects are, without doubt, one of the best heavy bands around at moment. They proved it a year ago and they proved it again tonight. There are few who can compete when it comes to that title, it just so happens that Every Time I Die are one of the others. So really, If you like heavy music and you weren’t at the HMV Institute this evening, well you’ve missed out.
Review: Francis Sebestjanowicz
Photographs: Dave Musson