ARA
In a time when the death metal genre has longed for acts that provide true innovation while maintaining the passion of the style’s forefathers, Wisconsin’s Ara has created a sound over the course of two releases that gives the genre the shot of artistic savagery it needs. Rather than littering their compositions with flurries of notes that champion an alienating complexity over songwriting craft and still not falling victim to the tongue in cheek homage riffing that makes up the old school revival, Ara delivers compositions that bear no compromise to the current sounds that pass for extreme and instead carves an identity for itself where few debut releases dare to tread.