Try as I may to enjoy the "Christian" music scene, it's never easy due to numerous bands who try to distinguish themselves only by their reverent, Christian content-packed lyrics while staying content to follow in the well-worn musical footsteps of their secular counterparts. I treasure the albums of bands that are pioneers both in the truth of their lyrics and the ingenuity of their music. Where alternative rock has bands in this category like Switchfoot, Jars of Clay, and Needtobreathe, power metal has Theocracy, and metalcore has August Burns Red, death metal has one that darn near tops them all: Becoming the Archetype. Possibly my favorite non-melodic death metal band by any stretch, it's a nice bonus that they write cool concept albums comparing the spread of the gospel to fire melting ice or containing extensive references to one of my favorite authors.
To start off, "Mountain of Souls" begins with a rather ghastly, dramatic riff that morphs into a full-on death metal assault before the first verse. It also features a spacier bridge with clean vocals and a mellow, very Opeth-style piano outro. Excellent starting song, but not even close to the album standout. The title track mixes more furious riffing with some soft backing keyboard which is an interesting and rather puzzling effect. it again has a quiet, piano interlude with clean vocals that builds back up to the song's full force in a rather epic manner. The lyrics are more or less a retelling of the second half of Romans 1--the hopelessness of the human condition without God and our tendency to bring destruction upon ourselves.
"Artificial Immortality" shows how BtA toys with melodic songs that are enjoyable for more than pure brutality, without crossing over into melodic death metal. Fantastic blast beats in the chorus and a fist-pumping pseudo-breakdown are also awesome. Lyrically it recalls the horrific experiments of the NICE to "improve" humanity. "Self-Existent" is pretty much a retelling of the resurrection...with furious blast beats! The sheer power of the screamed lyrics "I watched him die/I watched him die" counterpointed by "I saw him rise/I saw him rise" is pretty epic.
"St. Anne's Lullaby" is a brief acoustic interlude...I hope I'm not making BtA sound too much like Opeth; they use some of the same compositional techniques, but sound very little alike. "Ransom" starts off similarly quietly but is definitely one of the heaviest songs on the album, with a particularly awesome, shredding guitar solo and lyrics using Ransom's final battle in Perelandra as a metaphor for Christ's victory over death. "Evil Unseen" has some excellent double-bass work, but seems a bit less compositionally "tight" as other songs.
"How Great Thou Art" is, of course, a death metal retelling of the classic hymn. I'm just waiting for the Hope worship band to play it during offering one day. Someday... "Deep Heaven" uses dark, dense synthesizers in the intro and verses for a really cool effect as the lyrics compare leaving the earth with leaving behind the weight of sin and death. Once again, cool piano interlude. They don't feel overdone on this album. And finally, "End of the Age" is pure epic all the way through, with awe-filled lyrics about God's glory and the second coming like "He pulls down the sky/To crush His enemies/He descends upon them with fire". The chorus has death grunts mixed with what sounds like a choir for "He is clothed in greatness/His voice resounds throughout the earth". The last two and a half minutes are instrumental and provide more-than-adequate closure to the album.
Overall, this is a fantastic album both in its death metal prowess and its deep, truth-packed lyrics. (And C.S. Lewis references) Vocalist Jason Wisdom gets major points for his heavy-yet-intelligible vocals that get the band's message across, but they always come off as poetic rather than preachy.
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