Review: Ashenspire – Hostile Architecture

Style: Progressive/Avant-garde Black Metal (angry vocals)
Recommended for fans of: A Forest of Stars, Altar of Plagues, Imperial Triumphant, Zeal and Ardor, Thy Catafalque, White Ward
Review by: Zach
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 18 July, 2022

I’d like to hope that in my time at this blog, most of you have come to know me. In the Secret Subway Headquarters, there’s plenty of stuff that’s considered a “Zach” album, usually coinciding with a few of my other lurkers of the underground. A lover of all things dark, weird, and theatrical is what I like to call myself. And as much as I like to spend most of my time in fantasy, sometimes life does a funny thing where it drags you back to reality fast enough to give you whiplash. Hostile Architecture is all three of the things I’ve listed above, but it separates itself from, say, Acrylazea’s masterpiece by not being about some fantastical world or a mad doctor. Instead, Hostile Architecture is all the hatred and revulsion of watching the gap between upper and middle class grow farther each year, compounded and smashed into one album.

This album is not fun, let me get that out of the way. This isn’t the usual headbanger, and unless anger at the ultra-rich is what helps you get them gains, this isn’t your gym soundtrack either. Hostile Architecture is designed to make you feel uncomfortable because its very essence is discomfort. The discomfort of an office worker trying to afford their cramped, rat-infested apartment. Or the discomfort of a homeless person watching as the very city they live in works against them by installing dividers on a park bench. That constant sinking feeling, wondering if you’ll be financially bound for the rest of your life is exactly what Ashenspire is talking (well, more like screaming) about.

Ashenspire reminds me a bit of Imperial Triumphant in not only the dissonance they use in their music but also the unconventional instrumentation to characterize the seedy underbelly of life in the big city. ‘The Law of Asbestos’ opens with a graceful sax and dulcimer, painting the image of a pristine city in my mind, showing its history from humble village to sprawling metroplex, all blown out and rotted by the time that opening riff begins. In come the vocals, a mix of singing and screaming called “sprechgesang”, prophesizing doom for “There’s worse than the pox for all these houses”.

“This is done with full intent”, vocalist and drummer Alasdair Dunn screams, referencing the ever-present pitfalls and debt traps landlords keep in place to extract every last cent from their tenants. The ending lines of the opener are what sold me on this album in the first place. I’ve heard a million albums say “rich people bad” but never really scratch beyond  the surface. Ashenspire digs straight through the surface with a knife and twists. If the lyrics weren’t nearly this well done, I would’ve said this album is “good” and left it at that.

However, it’s more than that. Similar to the trio of A Forest of Stars vocalists, Dunn puts his whole chest into every single word. Usually, I’d find an album with vocals like this unlistenable, but you can hear his passion behind the message he’s spreading. It’s almost infectious.

The instrumentals are no slouch either. The guitar riffs are oppressive and claustrophobic, and the occasional addition to the chaos with violin, dulcimer, and sax help set the atmosphere expertly. Hostile Architecture makes it very easy for us to picture a city acting in oppression against its own citizens, held up like a puppet by the upper class and acting upon their whims. The unorthodox instruments almost act as voices of their own in the album, with the sax solo rounding off ‘Plattenbau Persephone Praxis’ sounding chillingly somber.

The album seems to represent a downward spiral of this template of a modern city on the road to revolution. With the opener setting the scene, and ending with the only way an oppressed populace can rise up. The closer, making reference to the rise of modern-day fascism, calls for an uprising against those who’ve “salted the soil/Buried up to your neck in the debts of your station.”

The more I’ve listened to it, and the more I’ve analyzed it, I’ve come to see that Ashenspire have created something anxiety-inducing, grim, and downright terrifying–but incredibly important nonetheless. It harbors a great deal of wisdom when speaking about the subjects of the capitalist hellscape we’re all trying to survive in. This band has done more than most in the fact that they’ve related to the situation of the “great many”. Who cares if it lacks subtlety? What has to be said in this album needs to be said in the plainest terms possible.

“If it’s to be Cable Street again, we won’t win through debate. You can’t reason with malice, the fasces must break”

Recommended tracks: The Law of Asbestos, Plattenbau Persefone Plexus, Tragic Heroin
You may also like: Dawn of a Dark Age, Pensées Nocturnes, Voices
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Code666 Records – Website

Ashenspire is:
– Alasdair Dunn (drums, vocals)
– Frasier Gordon (guitars, vocals)
– Ben Brown (bass)
– James Johnson (violin, vocals)
– Sean McLean (Rhodes, prepared piano)
– Ryan Gleave (vocals)
– Amaya Lopez-Carromero (vocals)
– Otrebor (Hammered Dulcimer)