When you deliver an debut album that arguably reinvigorated melodic death metal in 2004s A Celebration Guilt, expectations tend to pile on and pile up, and despite a Children of Bodom like trajectory, founder and brainchild James Malone has largely responded well with subsequent albums, maybe with the exception of 2010s more rock based Starve for the […]

With their first 3 albums, A Celebration of Guilt, United in Regret and We Are the Nightmare, James Malone’s Arsis, injected a feral energy and staggering musicianship to a stagnating melodic death metal scene and added the US as major players in the genre. However, personal and line up issues hindered the band’s progress and […]

Virginia-based melodic tech-death metal masters, ARSIS, have announced Unwelcome as the title of their upcoming fifth full-length album. The follow up to their 2010 release Starve for the Devil, will be released on April 30, 2013 in North America via Nuclear Blast records. “At this point ARSIS has more than a few releases in our […]

I had been sort of a casual fan of Arsis before the release of the extraordinary We Are the Nightmare, but that album took my fandom to a whole new level and made me appreciate the two albums and EP before it even more. I felt the inclusion of drummer Darren Cesca on that album […]

In Thrash We Trust Tour – St. Louis, MO June 4th 2008 The two hour drive from my home to Pop’s in St. Louis (Sauget, Ill to be exact – right across the river from Downtown) is always a long one, but I’m more than willing to make it to see a good show. Death […]

Lead guitarist/vocalist James Malone offers this band update: “Although we had a great run over the past year and a half with drummer Darren Cesca [whose work is featured on the band’s latest album, We Are The Nightmare], we have decided to stop working with him in Arsis. The reasoning behind this decision is simply […]

I have a great affinity for bands who possess exceptional technical skill, and also for bands with great hook writing ability without being to cheesy or poppy. Bands that can combine both of those elements though are a real rarity, especially when you figure in the nature of extreme metal.  Arsis is one such band, […]

Hangin’ tough at the crossroads can be interesting. You either make a deal with the devil, move on, and rock the F out or you go home with the same crappy guitar and poor playin’ aptitude. For Arsis, it seems they’ve finally made a deal with the devil. No, not Nuclear Blast. The devil gave […]

The word melodic gets thrown around like food when Anna Nicole Smith eats a buffet; a word chucked into death metal to show something other than sheer brutality, but other than a few solos, what makes death metal truly melodic?.Arsis, that’s what. Let me tell you, the 13 minute center piece of this criminally teasing […]

We all know Willowtip does death metal and grind as good as or better than any other US label, but how will they fare in the European dominated melodic/black genre? Fucking phenomenally. As with most Willowtip releases, Arsis’s offering is the extremity tipped, red headed, bastard child of a parent genre. Arisis is to melodic […]