Review Archive Series #4: Arsis, A Diamond For Disease ep

The following review represents one in a series of reviews published during my tenure as the resident music critic and assistant Arts Editor for The Phoenix, the official student newspaper of UBC-Okanagan in Kelowna, B.C. They are being reprinted here because I feel that while these reviews might represent a point of serious-suckitude in the developement of my writing, they are examples of my earliest attempts at criticism (if jerking off on an album's cover and then snorting the cum in a line off my hand can be considered criticism).



















Arsis, A Diamond for Disease ep
Willowtip, 2005

The title track of this three-track ep by two-man American Death Metal innovators Arsis is beyond a shadow of a doubt the most ambitious single to be released this year by any aspiring prog-metal duo with only guitar, drums, and a whole bloody ballet company at their disposal! Forget the amusingly aggressive cover of Alice Cooper’s “Roses on White Lace” or the relentlessly repetitive bore, “The Promise of Never”, all that is really supposed to matter about this releases is the incredibly wank thirteen-minute melodic metal 'masterwork' that is “A Diamond for Disease.” A Diamond for Disease is the follow-up to last year’s A Celebration of Guilt, which along with Neuraxis’ Trilateral Progression was one of the best technical death-metal albums of 2004, let’s hope this trend of super-duper-fantastic releases from Willowtip continues to rejuvinate and revitalize what is truly the new classical music genre of the new millineum (snobbish technical posturing and refusal to branch out in ways that don't involve a ballet company intact). Heavy, but this attempt at legitimizing metal by combining it with an "avant-theatre troupe" is trying on my patience at best. Metal is best served with satan, beer, and/or dope, but not ballet slippers.

Exact review date unknown.