A Walk With the Wicked - Architects of Sadism review

 Along with the Crow Black Sky review, this one has been sitting in my notebook for ages. Both reviews have finally emerged from their paper prisons.

A Walk With the Wicked have established themselves as one of South Africa’s best metal bands, with their well-executed brand of death-groove metal. The Architects of Sadism EP was released last year. These metal warriors also organised the War at the Warehouse gigs, held in a warehouse in Salt River. The aim of War at the Warehouse was to take metal back to its roots; the bands played on makeshift stages in an unorthodox live music venue.

The Smouldering Remains is a strong opener. Resisting headbanging to the catchy grooves in the chorus is nearly impossible. This song is a regular fixture on my weekly playlists, attesting to its quality and potential to become a modern classic of African metal. There’s something about the lyrics of the chorus: "Nothing will be left/ Burnt into a crisp/ It all goes up in smoke/ This useless life I’ve lived." It feels as though the lyrics have a metaphorical layer to them. Another headbanger chorus arrives with track two, Medical Miscarriage. A few years ago, I’d never have thought that I’d enjoy a song about people being tortured in the name of medicine, but I enjoyed this song because the lyrics don’t give the impression of having gory lyrics just for shock value. The same applies to the lyrics of the title track.

Besides the lyrics, another area where A Walk With the Wicked particularly impresses is the guitar work. Guitarists Matthew Howard-Tripp and Ian Robbins both display their fret board finesse on the album. The standout solos for me were on the tracks Reaching For The Dark and Already Dead, with solos from Howard-Tripp and Robbins respectively. Ancient Servant features a great guest solo from Charles Knighton-Pullin, guitarist of local hair metal band Sabretooth.

Reaching For The Dark, like The Smouldering Remains, has a striking chorus, with the lyrics "And we shall be more than created/ Behind this frail human mask". This track ties with Already Dead as my album favourite. The latter is laden with catchy, yet interesting grooves. Another strong point of Already Dead is its ability to stay focused through the multiple tempo changes. Closing the album is the title track, relentlessly pounding out the last millilitres of the listener’s resistance.

Architects of Sadism is an album which contains equal amounts of catchy grooves, technical brilliance and well-written lyrics. It can definitely be counted as one of the best death metal releases to come out of South Africa in the 2000s.