Style: Technical death metal (Harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Necrophagist, Psycroptic, The Zenith Passage, Vale of Pnath, Infant Annihilator, Origin
Country: Canada
Release date: 10 April 2026

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Carving out a niche in a crowded scene is hard, but Archspire struck gold with their 2017 instant classic, Relentless Mutation, a record which stretched the possibilities of neoclassical tech death to an excess of 350 bpm. Then, following the wise “more is more” philosophy of Yngwie Malmsteen, the Canadian quintet went faster on follow-up, Bleed the Future, cresting the mythical 400 bpm mark on “A.U.M.” Since then, they’ve hosted an online spectacle of a drum audition, dropped Season of Mist as a label, and continued goofing around on social media. They also Kickstarted their new record, Too Fast to Die. While humor has always been a key part of the band’s identity both online and live, with an album title so on the nose, I grew increasingly uneasy that they were becoming a self-parody à la DragonForce—that they had embraced the meme so much as to let it infiltrate the music.

We’re talking about Archspire, though, and rest assured that this band’s floor is still 99th percentile stuff. And in some ways, the record is even more serious than Bleed the Future since it skips out on things like the (admittedly hilarious) iconic voicemail on “A.U.M.” telling the band they need to “bring back the fucking danger in the music.” Among Archspire’s myriad strengths is impeccable songwriting: one can take any song on the Too Fast to Die¹ and observe a masterclass of how to write variations on a theme. The longest track on the record, “Limb of Leviticus,” plays into Relentless Mutation’s neoclassical style the most, opening with a minute-long series of insanely technical melodic riffs at a variety of speeds with differently accented pacing; yet five and a half minutes later, the various melodic lines all make sense as they’re continually reintroduced between breakdowns and recontextualized in a slow-mo, string-only counterpoint middle section and outro. Other tracks, such as “The Vessel” and opener “Liminal Cypher,” start with these contrapuntal string sections, providing a brief introduction to the melodic contours to come before they’re presented to you at the speed of light. The willingness to play with the same riffs in different parts of the same song on Too Fast to Die helps untie the cerebral knottiness of the string parts; the songs funnel into themselves ouroborically via smart repetition and reuse of guitar lines, keeping each song cohesive and self-contained—no homogeneity fatigue here.

The well-lubricated speed machine that is Archspire is also the picturesque version of conservation of momentum². In their frictionless high velocity moments, the strings weave tapestries of spindly counterpoint in precise rhythms as the wicked dual guitars of Dean Lamb and Tobi Morelli skip strings, sweep, tap, and harmonize at the speeds relativistic physics were introduced to understand. Archspire perform together as a single laser-focused entity, though, and with sudden, fluid transitions, the entire band might slam into a wall, perfectly shifting into neck-breaking chugs—the heaviness gets cranked the fuck up. While I live for the intricate Bach- and Mozart-informed string acrobatics, it’s hard not to love the frequent slams and breakdowns—like the punishing one reminiscent of Cattle Decapitation’s “Pacific Grim” in “Liminal Cypher,” or even the stop-and-start riff of “Carrion Ladder” that underpins the track’s lead guitar shenanigans. Oliver Rae Aleron also adjusts his vocal approach depending on the section, either percussively barking out bars at Tech N9ne-pace to keep up with the guitars in a virtuosic display of vocal nimbleness, or letting out a range of inhuman-sounding inhaled harshes or maybe a classic deathcore bree.

Although Archspire have a well-established formula and their need for speed, they still experiment with a couple new techniques. The gang vocals on “Anomalous Descent” fit the style well and aren’t abused, appearing in only one track; and the grindcore explosion in “Red Goliath” is as quality as style veterans like Benighted and Cattle Decapitation—the track somehow seamlessly transitions into an Inferi-esque meloditech riff from there. On “The Vessel,” however, Archspire tread ground too close to melodic deathcore bands like Shadow of Intent and Lorna Shore, and the bombastic, saccharine melody doesn’t fit in with Archspire’s more noodly spirit. 

The same issue that prevented Bleed the Future from dethroning Relentless Mutation as my favorite Archspire record plagues Too Fast to Die as well, unfortunately: the drums on this new album are too damn loud. Except for the previously noted string-only micro-interludes, the tempo is primarily driven by blast beats over 250 bpm—along with switch-ups and groovy non-blasts behind the melodic parts—and the machine-gun tone Archspire chose for the record drowns out bassist Jared Smith too much—yes, the best fretted bassist in tech is lost a bit in the mix except for his wicked solos. Archspire lose out on a whole dimension of their sound, and Too Fast to Die is a shallower record because of it, with fewer addicting parts to follow as I struggle to trace the bass as much as previous releases. I’ve seen the band meme on Instagram playthroughs of Smith’s bass parts that they’re too loud, so it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, I suppose. Of course, the band wants to highlight their new drummer. Losing out on generational tech death drummer Spencer Prewett was a bummer, but Spencer Moore³ (ex-Inferi) is a Moore-than-capable replacement, keeping up with the relentless, physically taxing pace of an album whose title literally sounds like something that would be used to torture a percussionist. He not only hangs onto the endless blasts, but he injects intriguing fills all over—his fingerprint is here, and he clearly fits in with his new gig immediately. 

Besides the lack of bass, the only time Archspire take the bit too far is the closer and title track, “Too Fast to Die.” At 440 bpm, even the most consummate guitar players on Earth struggle to keep up; they sweep at tempo, but the harmonized leads sound uncharacteristically sloppy, more like Origin or Rings of Saturn than the Archspire we all adore. At this pace, interesting writing is blown right by, with some of the band’s blandest riffs and solos of their career. Such a result shouldn’t be unexpected at this genuinely insane pace, but when a band keeps pushing the boundary so successfully, you start to expect the impossible. Will they attempt to go even faster next album? I think another attempt at 440 would be better—or just go back to 350 bpm since “Involuntary Dopplegänger” is a much better song and didn’t lean too far into the gimmick.

My worries before the release were a bit overblown because Too Fast to Die is an exceptional record from one of the best bands in the history of death metal, but it is their weakest of the last three and suggests a couple worrying trends. More Archspire is more Archspire, though, and I’m sure as hell not complaining that we got their longest album⁴. My biggest concern is that the pits at the band’s live shows are already violent, and with the even faster, even groovier, and even heavier moments on Too Fast to Die, the band might cause a literal death in one—or maybe the circle will be moving too fast to die.

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Recommended tracks: Liminal Cypher, Red Goliath, Limb of Leviticus
You may also like: Spawn of Possession, Viraemia, Carnosus, Ophidian I, Aronious, Henker
Final verdict: 8.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: independent

Archspire is:
– Oliver Rae Aleron (vocals)
– Dean Lamb (guitar)
– Tobi Morelli (guitar)
– Spencer Moore (drums)
– Jared Smith (bass)

1. Except for the finale title track, but more on that later. ↩︎
2. p=mv as a reminder for those of you who’ve been out of physics for a while. ↩︎
3. I find it amusing that Dream Theater replaced Mike with Mike (and then back to Mike again), and now Archspire have done the same. Which Spencer is better? Yes. ↩︎
4. Sub forty minutes still, so the perfect length. ↩︎