Just because you write reviews yourself, it doesn't mean that you don't read what others think about this and that album from time to time. It's quite interesting to see if the others out there are of the same opinion or if you're going completely against the grain. Sometimes you're surprised how others can think that what you just rated 100/100 is pure shite, and how something you think is utter crap was rated very highly by others. I've had an experience just like that.

I've been listening to the new and sixth CD by UK metalcore heroes Architects and I'm completely failing to see how they add anything new to a genre of metal which is so excellently covered by bands like Heaven Shall Burn and Maroon. And honestly, do we reeeeally need more purveyors of metalcore in this day and age?

Then, in my usual search for cover artwork and song lists, I stumble over not just one, but three very positive reviews of 'Lost Forever//Lost Together', one, notably, by review legend Dom Lawson in The Guardian! Lawson more or less calls Architects the redeemers of the metalcore genre.

I had to listen through the album a couple of times more after having read that.

No, Dom. No, I don't buy it. I wonder if it's the fact that this for once is a UK band that has made a decent metalcore album and not a German band that makes these three (UK) reviewers fall on their tails for joy. I wonder if they ever listened to Heaven Shall Burn and understood how metalcore, like, in my opinion, black metal, wasn't a genre destined to be listened to for very long without being changed quite a bit. In my ears, Architects haven't changed much of the metalcore formula with 'Lost Forever//Lost Together'. It just sounds like...metalcore. It takes around four songs before there's any kind of variation, and in my world it just gets boring with the constant screaming. And, man, Sam Carter screams. I mean, let off some steam and create some diversity instead.

As they go, this is a decent, well-played, but not extremely relevant metalcore album, and certainly not the revolution some reviewers would like it to be.