Archspire

Archspire, the Vancouver technical death metal unit, fuses deathcore, grindcore, and progressive metal strains into its jagged, high-velocity assault. That attack draws its firepower from eight-string guitarist Dean Lamb and seven-string guitarist Tobi Morelli, while vocalist and lyricist Oliver Rae Aleron, drummer Spencer Prewett, and bassist Jared Smith—the sole non-founding member—complete the lineup. Although the group enters the studio only sporadically, it maintains an unrelenting cycle of tours and rehearsals. Its intricate style features scorching guitar patterns, extensive six- and four-string sweeps, rapid tapping, syncopated progressive drumming, and guttural vocals. Those traits surfaced first on the 2011 release All Shall Align and again on the 2014 tech-death benchmark The Lucid Collective; after Smith joined in 2016 the band forged a distinctive signature approach on the 2017 album Relentless Mutation and refined it further on the explosive 2021 record Bleed the Future.

Oliver Rae Aleron and Spencer Prewett established the group in 2009; the two guitarists came aboard soon afterward, as did bassist Jaron Evil, formerly of Funeral Fornication. Evil departed following the band’s debut full-length All Shall Align in 2011. Because of the guitarists’ exceptional technical command, no permanent replacement was installed when Archspire signed with Season of Mist and delivered its second album, The Lucid Collective, in 2014; Clayton Harder supported the group on the road. Six-string bassist Jared Smith, previously of Civil Ruin and Harvest the Infection, became a permanent member in January 2016, prompting an immediate shift in the band’s direction. The quintet then composed its third album, Relentless Mutation, which appeared in September 2017 and reached the upper tier of the Independent Albums chart.

During 2019 the band drew worldwide attention in technical metal circles when the international programming collective Dadabots built a neural network trained exclusively on Archspire’s catalog, generating an uninterrupted stream of technical death metal derived from the original material. Dadabots cited the band’s machine-like drumming precision and splintered guitar textures as the reason for the project’s exceptional consistency. In October 2021 the five-piece issued Bleed the Future, tracked at Flatline Audio in Denver and handled from start to finish by owner and metal drummer Dave Otero.