Ashenspire – Hostile Architecture
Release Date: 18th July 2022
Label: Aural Music
Bandcamp
Genre: Avant-Garde, Post-Black Metal, Progressive Black Metal.
FFO: Pensees Nocturnes, Mewithoutyou, Daughters.
Review By: Andy Spoon
From its inception, rock and roll music has always been a way to protest the ordinary, to make the voice of the marginalized a bit louder, a way to stick one’s proverbial middle finger up to the establishment. In the 1950s, the proliferation of rock and roll music was to inflame the status quo, “the squares”. In the 1970s and 1980s, rock and extreme metal music was a tool for protesting the religious hierarchy of western Christianity in society. In recent years, bands like Cattle Decapitation, Cytotoxin, Gojira, and more, have brought their extreme metal message to a contemporary world, drawing on topics like climate change, armed conflict, political extremism, and the woes of a runaway capitalist society which values profits over lives.
Ashenspire wishes to add to the library of recent “protest” music with their July 15th release, Hostile Architecture, an 8-track, post-blackened offering blending a mixture of musical influences such as jazz and neoclassical with black metal, hoping to create a signature sound for 2022. It’s evident to listeners that this is not your typical post-black release, mixing saxophones, violins, and other instruments with traditional blackened elements to create an avant-garde assault meant to be disorienting as well as thought-provoking in its content.
Right off the bat, violins, saxophones, blackened guitar riffs, strained “scream-talk” vocals are all smooshed together to create a wild sonic assault that takes a serious moment to absorb. The stereo production is excellently-executed, sending half notes alternating back and forth between left and right channels. The “disorientation” factor is truly evident, creating an atmosphere that is meant to be stressful, clearly following the pained message of Ashenspire.
“Always three months to the gutter, never three months to the crown” is a powerful phrase repeated in the first track, The Law of Asbestos, which demonstrates a powerful desperation of the lyricist, citing the plight of the poor over eight and a half minutes, culminating in a gorgeous lyrical and sonic climax. It is clear that themes of inequality and the struggle of the poor/marginalized are vital to the central core of Ashenspire’s effect, whether that be tonal or lyrical. Needless to say, 2022 has stretched people’s ability to try and make ends meet across the world, so addressing these matters in Hostile Architecture ought to be a surprise to no one.
Sonically, there are elements that are intentionally-confusing. The guitar melodies follow one line of music, while the accent instruments seem to sometimes deviate from that line of music, either in rhythm, tune, or melody. There is a dissonance, or free-form nature to the accent instruments (saxophone and violin) that keeps the listener from being able to zero in on a particular line of music in each song. Further, the poetic nature of the lyrical content forms its own rhythmic palette, reminiscent of Daughters, Mewithoutyou and Pensees Nocturnes. Overall, the confusing nature of the music lends to the freakish holistic tone that is both nonsensical and poignant. To say it “fits” is an understatement. It’s an involved listen.
The album is absolutely not going to appeal to people who listen exclusively to death or black metal. There are merely elements of each of those genres in Hostile Architecture, not holistic themes to follow. The “theater” of the album is apparent in tracks like How The Mighty Have Vision, which is largely a melodic choral track emphasizing lyrics over instrumentation. Further, there are apparent changes in stylistic method between tracks, something that might disappoint someone who is trying to listen for continuity. Hostile Architecture is a listen that requires time and thoughtful intent to appreciate, as are most avant-garde albums.
Featuring especially-long tracks, rapidly-changing rhythms, scattered violins and saxophones, wildly-heavy political lyrics citing the inequality of the capitalist world, Ashenspire’s Hostile Architecture is an in-your-face post-metal offering that takes on societal problems, fascism, free-market anarchy, while excellently creating a sonic atmosphere to match the angst which is intended. 
(4 / 5)
