The Architects go hard on 'Lost Forever//Lost Together' to escape softer albums of old

Society always celebrates the records that top the Billboard 200 album chart. Back of The Billboards is a Music Times weekly segment that looks at the opposite end: the new record that finished closest to the back of the Billboard 200 for the previous week. We hope to give a fighting chance to the bands you haven't heard of.

Week of 03/21/2014
WHO: The Architects
WHAT: Lost Forever // Lost Together
SPOT: 125

You have to reach really deep into the Billboard 200 to find the last placing new album this week, and Britain's The Architects.

The metalcore band has kept its eyes on the past, and the effects continue to show on Lost Forever // Lost Together. The Architects so hated its 2011 effort The Here and Now that it was still trying to escape its popular appeal three years later with its second album since the aforementioned offender.

That doesn't make LF//LT pure death metal, or pure, heavy metalcore for that matter. The album features occasional electronic elements, less than but similar to British post-hardcore group Enter Shikari. Vocalist Sam Carter also sounds like Shikari's Rou Reynolds, which adds to the comparisons (of course, maybe our American ears can't differentiate between British voices, in which case: our bad).

Carter's vocals are where The Architects overplay the metal hand, if they do it anywhere. He too frequently relies on metal interjections (i.e. "UGH!") to sound tough, a problem affecting many a metalcore act. A plus-point for the British version of the metal subgenre is production style, which makes guitarist Tom Searle sound like he's playing a large auditorium versus a small recording studio. It's a matter of taste, but American acts frequent the tighter, claustrophobic style.