If you don't know who Arkive are, you will all know soon enough.
The following is my developing thought process after each new song dropped by Melbourne's Arkive.
With last year's single, 'Everstorm', I thought "Yeah, these guys are pretty damn cool. I am quite excited to see what comes next from them." From that, I was happy to take time with the band for an Aussie Feature piece last year. Then with this July's track, 'Acquiescence' (which guest featured Marcel Gadacz of Dream On, Dreamer fame), my first thought after listening was "Yep, I was right to be excited about these dudes, this is a good tune". Now, with their recently released widescreen melodic metalcore banger, 'Luminous', and before the track was even over, my brain erupted with loud thoughts of "holy fucking shit!".
Released via Dreambound last week, and giving the band one major viewer boost in the process, 'Luminous' shows off the very facets that have made Arkive a quickly growing name in the local heavy music scene; the sky-high clean vocals of Mitch Burgess contrasted by the aggressive, guttural screams of Court Walters, the interplay of crunchy riffs under the band's massive layers of soaring, atmospheric guitar melodies, the ludicrously right and punchy rhythm section present, that wicked breakdown at 2:47 - it's all there and while nothing that new for their genre, it's damned solid.
This is just a delicious taste of what's to come on their 'Sonder' EP, due out later this year. Stay tuned...
