Warchitect is the continuation of Passion, which fell apart after the departure of both the drummer and the singer. So, Michael Schoemaker (guitar) and Arjen de Boer (bass) decided to start with a fresh approach and continued under the name of Warchitect. New musicians were recruited and the band continued to rehearse. A debut and a second album were recorded and released, all done without the support of a label, quite impressive I’d say.

Warchitect describe their style as progressive death metal and who am I to argue with that?
When hearing the description “progressive death metal” one band immediately pops into my mind and that, of course, is Death. And to be honest, I think the guys of Warchitect are great Death fans too. Saying that, that certainly is no accusation of plagiarism but one can clearly hear the influence of this legendary band.

For starters: the singing style of singer Frankie Ruisch resembles Chuck’s style remarkably and the typical plopping bass sound of Arjen de Boer’s fretless bass instantly brings memories back from Individual Thought Patterns. Although the music can be labelled as death metal, it’s more accurate to speak of progressive metal with death metal influences.

The tracks on A Sea Of Red are mostly mid-tempo with a lot of room for the individual members to excel. Numerous guitar and bass leads are a testament to the musical skill of Warchitect. While not being everyone’s cup of tea Warchitect is a very mature band with its own distinctive sound and well-written tracks that should be able to find a decent label anytime soon. In fact, I wonder why they didn’t already.