Band:	Arch Of Hell
Album:	Arrival
Style:	Melodic death metal
Release date:	October 2020

01. Chariots Of The Gods
02. Arrival
03. Nile
04. Sachmet
05. Curse Of Reincarnation
06. 19.07.13
07. Stardust
08. Follow The Sphinx
09. Ambrosia
10. Ungrateful
11. Vanishing Out Of The Earth

Not a particularly memorable Arrival?

Death metal combined with some Egyptian theming is a popular combination. Bands like Nile (brutal/technical death metal) and Crescent (blackened death metal) have proven that already. This time we've got death metal of the melodic kind with Arch Of Hell's Arrival. So, what exactly did we get? Well, the aforementioned melodic death metal is mixed with some metalcore and a few symphonic touches every once in a while.

The theme of this record becomes immediately obvious with the intro track. It builds up the Ancient Egypt atmosphere and then suddenly changes gears and becomes a futuristic electronic piece. That latter part sounds like it could be part of a video game soundtrack. Still though, I kind of appreciate the fact that the theme is immediately told through the music. And that theme is aliens and Ancient Egypt. Aliens + Ancient Egypt, pretty original idea. If it weren't for the Stargate film and TV-series, the Serious Sam games or Iced Earth's Framing Armageddon (Something Wicked - Part 1) album? As you might have guessed by now, this isn't exactly the most original album. Certainly not in terms of the concept story. And unfortunately the music itself suffers the same problem.

That intro that I talked about? It's the only track that has an outspoken sci-fi feel to it, and as a result it's one of the more memorable parts of Arrival. Don't get me wrong, originality doesn't necessarily automatically mean that an album is automatically good. It's hard to tell for me whether it would have been better if they added those electronic parts in more songs. They could spice up some tracks, but I also feel like there would be a thin line between it adding to the music and it becoming too grating. Perhaps that's why they didn't fully commit to them; I can only guess. But still, I feel like they could have done more to make this album stand out a bit. The elements that they mixed into this album don't really succeed at compelling the listener.

Speaking of mixing, let's talk about the actual mix of this album? It's not exactly consistent. The growling vocals are clearly audible in the production; the cleans, however, sometimes feel like they get pushed to the background a bit by the instruments. Certain things like keyboard effects are all over the place in how prominent they sometimes are in the mix. There are keyboard elements that I only heard on my third listen, that's how faint they sometimes are. The production on the guitars is solid, but the drums are quite top-heavy. On the one hand, that means you still hear the drums clearly in the mix; however, the downside is that they miss a bit of warmth to them. Overall it's a bit of a mixed bag.

And honestly, that's how I feel about the album as a whole. There are some nice melodies and drum parts ("Nile" has a pretty nice drum fill). Vocals are solid as well. The lyrics were ok for the most part, though the song "Sachmet" was pretty annoying; growling Sachmet 16 times in a row at the start of the track (yes, I've counted them) and towards the end doing it another 12 times starts to get repetitive if I'm honest...

Unfortunately, as a whole it doesn't really stand out in any way in the sea of melodeath records. The best moments this record had, reminded me a bit of the weaker moments on an Aeternam record. Solid but not great either. In the end, I can't say that I was impressed by this record, and the feeling that more could have been done always kept lingering in the back of my mind. Even for fans of the melodeath genre, I don't think this album is really worthwhile.