Arsis came out of nowhere last year on the small upstart Willowtip Records label with their debut, A Celebration Of Guilt. The idea of melodic Swedish style death metal, at that point, turned my stomach thanks to all the Unearths and As I Lay Dyings we’ve been drowned in over the past couple of years. But Arsis changed all that and made me excited to hear this style of music being played again. Yeah, sure, they take some of the obligatory Gothenburg ideas into the material present. But then, Arsis takes an approach to the style more sinister and aggressive than anything even At The Gates released. They make this shit fun, exciting and oozing with energy once again for the first time in a long while; bringing back to mind the glory days of melodic Swedish death metal.

Now, in 2005, Arsis follow up with the 3-song EP, A Diamond For Disease, containing the epic 12+ minute title track, a cover, and another Arsis original to finish off the 20 minute disc. I was quite amazed at how quickly the title track seemed to go by with it being such a long song, something they didn’t do on A Celebration Of Guilt. All the elements of the debut are there: soaring leads, scathing vocals, blasting drums, and razor sharp riffs that are melodic without being sugary sweet. Many tempo changes and layers of guitar are abound as well keeping the song from getting monotonous or wearing out it’s welcome 5 minutes in. All in all, a welcome surprise to start off the EP.

Next comes “Roses On White Lace”, an unlikely choice of covers courtesy of Alice Cooper from 1987 that surprisingly fits right in with the rest of their catalog when given the Arsis touch. I never heard the original but thoroughly enjoyed the almost bouncy mid-paced song that maintains it’s 80’s metal sound even with the harsh vocals. It’s quite an enjoyable surprise and a good lead into the third and final track.

The last song, “The Promise Of Never” is prime Arsis and sounds like it could have been an outtake from A Celebration Of Guilt that didn’t quite make it on the final track listing. The first line in the song even starts out, “To celebrate the guilt, and tattoo their words upon your ever-scarring flesh.” So that ,of course, leads me to think that maybe it is an outtake, but a good one nonetheless.

The one question that stands out about this EP is why did it take so long and why only a 3 song EP with one of the songs being a cover? A Celebration Of Guilt was released around March of 2004 and that makes it about a year and a half old. So, is that all we get after a year and a half wait is 3 songs? Like one of our Treehouse posters said, it would be an album of the year contender if it were 2 to 3 times longer. Let’s hope this is just a sample of things to come and that we hear more from this phenomenal band soon. Let’s make a deal, A Diamond For Disease as an appetizer to the next full-length album coming out next year sometime. How about it, guys?

This entry was posted by RevelationNo9 on Wednesday, 16th November, 2005 at 5:24 and is filed under Reviews, Arsis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response below. You may view a   printable version of this page. You may download this page in   PDF format.