Decibrity Playlist: Archspire

When Oli Peters takes his songs about “lucid dreaming, a monster made out of teeth, a king who creates duplicates of himself who then overthrow him, and a guy who feeds himself to his backyard pig” on the road (my favorite part of KSP’s recent profile), he and his Archspire brethren tend to keep the traveling stereo tuned to the more extreme side of things. Well, at least until touring starts to takes its toll on the Vancouver quintet. As the vocalist explains, “After a certain amount of hours trapped in our tour van, something in our heads starts to switch and we spiral into full on batshit crazy idiots. Well, at least [drummer] Spencer [Prewett] and I do. [Guitarist] Tobi [Morelli] usually just sleeps through our bullshit and [guitarist] Dean [Lamb] angrily mumbles under his breath ‘Get me out of this fucking van, ugh.’ Usually we only listen to technical death metal because we are elitist assholes, but these are some of the songs we play in the tour van when we reach this point of childish insanity.” Given that the band just released its sophomore LP, we’re sure much more of that behavior is on the Canadians’ horizon.
Pick up a copy of The Lucid Collective here.

Tech N9ne’s “World Wide Choppers” (from 2011’s All 6’s And 7’s)
We all love this song! It’s like the vocal equivalent of blast beats. Tech N9ne and Busta Rhymes have been huge inspirations for my vocal style. The speed, phrasing and lyrical patterns in this song are absolutely amazing. When I first joined the band, Spencer showed me Tech N9ne and was like, “Can you do this, but in a death metal tone?” and I was like, “No, but I will try my best.”

The Doobie Brothers’ “What A Fool Believes” (from 1978’s Minute By Minute)
One night on tour after a show, Dean was driving us to a party. We were blaring this song and singing along in drunken full voice volume, replacing all the lyrics with “Fuckin’ Dean Lamb!” and “Too many eggs!” When we watched a video of this in the morning, we all realized that none of us can even slightly sing in key. This song was the soundtrack for our first cross Canada tour.

Toto’s “Rosanna” (from 1982’s Toto IV)
This song was the soundtrack to our second cross Canada tour. Just to make sure everyone in the tour van was sufficiently irritated, I would make sure to sing this song at least every half hour, making sure it was drilled firmly into everyone’s heads. The funny thing about this song is every time we would load in and set up, at least one guy from another band would be like, “Are you singing Toto?”

Animals As Leaders’ “CAFO” (from 2009’s Animals As Leaders)
This is guitar porn. It’s also one of our favorite pieces of music ever written. It sounds like aliens getting it on. This whole album is a masterpiece that can be played on repeat and still kick ass. Sometime vocals can ruin what would otherwise be awesome music. Luckily that’s not the case with this band.

Juicy Karkass’s “Punch ‘Em In The Dick” (from 2012’s Yes Sir, I’m Ill)
Just listen to this! Seriously! Every lyric is about punching someone in the dick! “Knock knock knock I just cold clocked your cock!” Brilliant.