Holy Hell marked a very tragic milestone in Architects' career, having lost their lead guitarist and founding member Tom Searle. After All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us released back in 2016, the band spent a lot of time dealing with the loss, and a byproduct of that grief was Holy Hell. The first taste of this album came from the single Doomsday, released in 2017 as a standalone song, both as an obligation to finish one of Tom's unfinished writings for him and to simply write out the pain involved in losing a loved one. From then on, Holy Hell started to develop and in a direction starkly different from most of their previous works, with a much more significant focus on personal loss, grief and pain instead of their usual topics of anger against society, corruption and systemic failures. The finished product found itself to be very emotionally charged and beautifully tragic, with a much rawer experience to offer.
Many of the tracks in this album touch upon the concept of death, and it's clear there has been much contemplation about death itself from the band. As you cruise along the dark waters of this tracklist, they dwell upon various ideas and topics entwined with death, whether it's the suffering of life or the inevitability of death, and you too are taken along the journey of realisations. Holy Hell is a poetic catharsis for the band as they sit in the aftermath of a tragedy and face the question of how this should affect how they view life in the face of death. As you get to the end of the album, it's clear what the band decided to answer. From the opening track Death Is Not Defeat with the titular line "I will know that death is not defeat", to the closing track A Wasted Hymn with the lines "All is not lost" and "Can you live a life worth dying for?", they've decided with this album that Tom's death will be as much an inspiration to live life to the fullest as it was a loss that brought forth enormous grief.
These are the messages and ideas they've sown into this album, and these are not only what I took away from my personal listens of this album but also what I love this album for. Not every piece of art will teach you something about life but when something does, and to this extent of authenticity, in a way that you can truly feel in your soul, it leaves a lasting impression. Music that changes your life is hard to come by, so I treasure and love this album very much. As a young soul, I've had the luck of not yet experiencing death on a personal level, but encountering this album has given me time and space to contemplate life and death in a way that I couldn't have before.
Meaning and sentiment aside, it is a marvelous show of skill and talent fueled by emotion and tragedy. As a world-class metalcore act, even before this album, it doesn't need to be said that it would be high quality. Even then, this album surpasses expectations and, albeit slightly softer, has a newer, more unique musical style than it's predecessor. Standout tracks like Royal Beggars with it's use of electronics in the verses to sharply contrast the metal instruments in the chorus and breakdown, or The Seventh Circle with it's relatively short but totally intense, fast-paced barrage of heaviness, with double kicks and extra vocal distortion to boot. From a purely metalcore standpoint, this is outstanding.
This album is just so pivotal, both for the band and in the metal community. Packed full of sentiment, this album is a ride worth taking the whole way through and then a few more times, just to soak in the emotions.
Rating: 10/10