Architects return to Australia this December, on the back of their 11th album 'The Sky, The Earth & All Between'.
The record is Architects at their absolute best. It's an album of the year contender and when all is said and done it should go down as one of their defining albums.
Despite being active since 2004, they've become one of those rare metal bands where a lot of their audience discovered them through their more recent albums, not the old.
The band's live shows this year reflect this, with the majority of the set list being from 2021 onwards. This is a fact that isn't lost on Architect's bassist Alex 'Ali' Dean.
"Our career's a strange one," Ali explains during an off day on their North American tour. "It feels like our biggest records have been ['The Sky, The Earth & All Between'] and 'For Those That Wish To Exist' [2021 release]. That was album number nine. I can't think of many bands that have their biggest albums that late on in their catalogue.
"Maybe we look back at all our releases and think maybe we should have not released so much, maybe a bit more quality control and slowed down a little bit," he laughs.
"You learn from every album campaign. We look back at the last record, 'The Classic Symptoms Of A Broken Spirit', and we think, 'maybe that wasn't, yeah wasn't good enough'.
"We went into making this new record with the experiences of that last one. A couple of cool songs came out of it, but we don't look back on the last album cycle too fondly."
Architect's Australian tour is set to be one of the most anticipated headline show line-ups of the year with the addition of support acts House of Protection and the mysterious PRESIDENT.
Ali loves House of Protection, but jokes they may show up Architects in their live show. "They are great humans, great band.
"Obviously they featured on 'Brain Dead' on our new record, so that's going to be fun, even though when the two of them come out and perform they make the rest of us feel like we're 70 years old and they go nuts and put on an amazing show."
PRESIDENT seem to be one of the most anticipated and fast rising bands in the industry right now. The mysterious masked frontman has garnered attention around the world, and they have already sold out their debut national UK tour, despite only releasing three songs so far.
The Australian Architects tour may be a rare opportunity to see the band in a support slot before they are launched into stardom. "It's amazing, people are obviously very excited to see [PRESIDENT].
"When they first came to our attention we were like 'yeah this is something cool and we want to get behind it'. There's obviously a lot to be revealed about what that band is going to become and where they're going to go.
"I've not seen anticipation for a band like this for, I don't know, I can't really compare it to anything, it's crazy, it's blown up so quickly."
For Architects, it's been their biggest year yet since releasing 2021's 'For Those That Wish To Exist'. They've done stadium support slots with the likes of Linkin Park and Metallica. "It's one of those things that you never imagine happening when you start out as a metal band when you're 16 or 17. It was a really cool moment for our band."
Although they were amazing experiences, the latter tour had some unexpected moments with the die-hard Metallica fans. "I think it was in Warsaw, Poland.
"We were playing and there was a guy in the 'snakepit', the VIP section [right at the front]. He was trying on a pair of shoes he had bought earlier in the day, while we were playing. Okay buddy, we get it, we're not for you," Ali laughs.
For 'The Sky, The Earth & All Between' they teamed up with super producer, former Bring Me The Horizon member and long-term friend of the band, Jordan Fish.
"I guess when he felt he was ready to get started with other projects, we were super excited to work with him. We worked with him in a loose capacity before with 'Doomsday' [2018].
"We did a version of 'Doomsday' and didn't feel great about it. We spoke to Jordan about it and then he ended up being heavily involved with that song. We've not really worked with a producer in that sense, ever.
"So to have someone come into the process with very strong ideas and us giving up more creative control and more ideas and letting him have so much input was a very new experience for us. It's obviously worked out great because we love the record."
Architects 2025 Tour Dates
Thu 11 Dec - Festival Hall (Melbourne)Sat 13 Dec - Hordern Pavilion (Sydney)
Sun 14 Dec - The Riverstage (Brisbane)
