### Arkaea: Years in the darkness

#### 27/08/09 || Smalley

Poor, poor Fear Factory; after starting off so promisingly with “Soul of a new machine” and “Demanufacture”, they began to flounder with weaker efforts on the next two albums, and while “Archetype” was a good record (fudge you, Abyss!!!), “Transgression” was definitely a misfire, and the band hasn’t done anything of note since then. Vocalist Burton C. Bell went off to waste time with Ascension Of The Watchers, and guitarist Christian Wolbers and drummer Raymond Herrera recently got kicked out of FF without their knowledge, leaving them with only… Arkaea (oh, and I might add Dino’s Divine Heresy isn’t any good). But to be fair, those two helped to form this group before they were kicked out of FF, so they have only themselves to blame now that this lousy band is all they’ve got.

“Awakening” starts off “Years in the darkness”, beginning with an average, Fear Factory-ish riff and bass line, and to make things worse, vocalist Jon Howard even sounds a good deal like Bell when he first opens his mouth; too much of the material on “Years” just sounds like sloppy seconds from “Archetype” anyway (or worse, from “Transgression”), and “Archetype” is over five years old. The instrumentation and song writing here aren’t bad at all, but Jon’s inadequate harsh vox manage to irritate me nonetheless, and his clean vox? Oh man, when he comes to the chorus, he does this shrill little whine that reminds me way too much of the guy from Linkin Park (the non-rapper), and that’s a style he’ll keep on using for the rest of “Years”. So, Arkaea’s singer does inferior imitations of two other vocalists (one of them not even good in the first place) for his vocalwork; wonderful. The dumbly-titled “Away form the sun” is a somewhat enjoyable ballad, and easily the best track here, ‘cause after that, the record basically sticks with the model established by “Awakening”; icky.

Too bad, because Herrera actually does a good job on his kit, and the bass work is nice too, and while the riffage is nothing special, it still isn’t awful. But that damn vocalwork prevented me from getting any enjoyment at all out of this, and is enough to drag “Years” down into “bad” territory. And even if Arkaea had a better singer, I still doubt I’d endorse the record, since the music is still bland modern metal; there’s definitely not enough real personality or style here. I can’t call Arkaea industrial, or death, or thrash, or even use a combination of those; yes, I know I’m coming off as anal about the classifications, but even the music here that doesn’t come off as watered-down Fear Factory is still very vanilla. So, from the end result here, it looks like Fear Factory and all associated acts will just be spending more years in the darkness, it seems…

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: E1 Music
- Website: http://arkaea.ning.com
- Band
- Jon Howard: vocals
- Christian Olde Wolbers: guitars
- Pat Kavanagh: bass
- Raymond Herrera: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Awakening
- 02. Away Form The Sun
- 03. Beneath The Shades Of Grey
- 04. Black Ocean
- 05. Break The Silence
- 06. Gone Tomorrow
- 07. Locust
- 08. Lucid Dream
- 09. My Redemption
- 10. Rise Today
- 11. The World As One
- 12. War Within
- 13. Years In The Darkness