MUSIC REVIEW: Arctis - “Arctis”
When I write album reviews these days, it’s generally for one of very few reasons: I’m personally interested in the artist and/or their concept, the artist is one that I’m very familiar with or I’ve been covering for a long time, or because I’m outright baffled and curious about something. The self-titled debut from Arctis happens to fall into the last of those categories. They appeared on the scene with all of two hundred followers on their most popular social media account and no released music, yet they were boasting a publishing deal with Napalm Records and a European tour with Apocalyptica… pretty hefty brags for a band without any music out there. Now, obviously, when something like that happens, people are going to reach a few conclusions; few of them are especially flattering and almost none of them offer any sort of generous read to the band’s artistic talent. This, if nothing else, marked Arctis as an of-interest act to check out. The self-titled debut, “Arctis,” came out on November 1st, 2024, via Napalm Records, but unfortunately, I have been delayed by other projects and am only getting this out now.
In case you’re new here, I often like to use this first paragraph to give a general personal history on the artist, so if you’d like to compare your favorites to mine to see how comparable our tastes are, this next paragraph is for you! After all, music is subjective! So, with that in mind, feel free to skip down to the next paragraph if you’re not interested in my personal history with Arctis.
So, obviously I don’t have any history with this band, but color me curious, right? A band of people that nobody has heard of before, whose members don’t have well-known previous bands nor a noteworthy number of significant industry contacts immediately available on their friend lists when they first appeared, and yet they have landed a big-name label and a big-name tour before releasing any music at all? They’re also working with big-name people on their album production. If Arctis genuinely got all of this on artistic merit alone, let’s say that I’ll be very genuinely surprised. Enough so to eat my hat, as they say. Knowing what the music scene is like, especially in Finland, it’s not hard to guess the origin of this band’s sudden exposure. But hey, whether or not they’ve “earned” what they’ve gotten is irrelevant in the long run. What actually matters is if they are any good. So that’s what I was most curious about when I dove into this album.
“Arctis” opens with an upbeat, electronic pop-metal sound in “I’ll Give You Hell.” I confess that already in the first song, I lost my grasp of the band’s vision. This was because all of their press material suggested to me that this is a fantasy concept band with a lot of big themes and stage personae (which would be right up my alley and had the potential to get me really excited), ergo, on listening to this song, it wasn’t what I was expecting. Is this a concept album or a collection of varied songs? Is there a story or not, and if not, why do the band members have these stage personae? If the vocalist is the Ice Queen Rebel Leader, donning her battle suit, how is that coming into play in the music? If you want to have a fantasy concept band, why are you singing about relatable modern topics? I don’t see any sort of cohesion, but it feels like they’re trying everything and thus none of it makes much sense.
The next song, I simply cannot be objective about, because it’s a cover of a song that I hate: “Bimbo” by Lambretta. This song is a fountain of annoying ‘90s stereotypes about a jealous ex-girlfriend. I’m not a fan, simply because I don’t enjoy promoting baseless pettiness. So there’s pretty much no universe in which a pop-metal remake is going to change my mind about whether I can relate to this song or not, regardless of what skin it’s in. I can’t say that I’m a fan of outdated relics like this being resurrected though, so the choice of cover isn’t giving any bonus points. With such a fun musical style to play with, surely they could’ve picked a song that had some substance, no?
On listening through the rest of the album a few times, it’s certainly not without its merits. Everything is executed with competence. The guitar solos are alright and the drum fills are surprisingly interesting at times, especially compared to what you get these days from well-established bands. I often complain about basic disco drums in pop-metal and Arctis does not fall victim to that laziness. Alva Sandström has a nice, if somewhat basic-sounding voice, though there is a shrillness in the mix of some songs like “I’ll Give You Hell” and “Tell Me Why” that isn’t very flattering. There are a few cool vocal lines scattered throughout the release and the songs have enough diversity between them that they don’t drone together: “WWM” has a pretty cool intro, for example, and “Frozen Sun” was a pretty solid slow-but-not-ballad-slow song, while the final track, “Theater of Tragedy” (named after the band, perhaps?) has some decent drama to it. But despite having a few interesting bits here and there, most of the songs don’t hugely stand out from one another. They’re baseline good, but… anyone can do baseline good these days, so I expected a little bit more.
The songs have what I would call a “Bella Swan feeling” to them. If you’ve ever seen a Twilight movie (or read the books), the main character, Bella Swan, is a nondescript character who’s a little bit of everything in a way that makes it easy for readers to imprint themselves onto the character. But if you were to actually look at the character of Bella, she doesn’t have a lot of substance. She doesn’t have a personality. That’s, unfortunately, the way this music feels. I have no idea if these guys write their own music or if someone writes with or for them, but the lyrics in every song feel so surface-level that I really have a hard time imagining someone getting emotional during a performance while playing them. Even if they’re talking about big modern issues, there’s a sensation that suggests a lack of personal experience, or if not that, a lack of willingness to go into any actual depth on the subjects. For example, if you compare Arctis’ songs about addiction against those of some of the metalcore bands like Asking Alexandria or We Came as Romans, bands who have had serious drug issues and/or lost band members to drug addiction… those are songs that will make me cry and feel all the feelings, even though I’m not a big metalcore fan, because I too lost my adoptive son to drug addiction and I can feel everything those guys felt when they poured their hearts into their music. The songs on those subjects from Arctis didn’t connect to me at all though. It feels almost as if the band picked modern subjects that everyone is talking about now and wrote about them from a general perspective, but didn’t dare to put any of their own experience into the songs. They feel broad-spectrum metaphorical in a way that might sound cool on the surface but doesn’t actually mean anything, which makes it so that every listener can imprint their own story onto it, like with Bella Swan. It’s a good marketing tactic, but art is about connection and, at least for me, I need something a little deeper.
No matter what, I can guarantee that opinions on this band are going to be divided, and I can sympathize with both arguments. Is the band so genuinely good that they deserve to have a huge head-start in the industry? No, not at all. I don’t think they did anything new or interesting enough that they got their deals through their artistic merit. Arctis aren’t offering anything that I haven’t seen multiple bands do before them, nor are they surpassing those predecessors, so innovation and artistic brilliance are certainly not what got them their label and tour, and putting in the time and effort to “earn” your status does still have some meaning for metalheads (as evidenced by how angry fans got when Jari Mäenpää wanted to crowdfund his own studio after releasing only two albums).
Furthermore, the band seems to still be finding their footing with their image, their sound, and their message. They haven’t reached a coherent balance between their stage personas and their music, the balance between EDM and metal, nor lyrical depth. It’s a decent start, but I am considerably more interested in where they’re going to go from here. They come from privilege, that much is evident… so what are they going to do with it?
With all that said, “Arctis” is still a perfectly competent release and if you like this sort of electronic pop-metal and don’t care too much about the background business behind things, I’m sure you’ll find a lot to like in Arctis’ music. Personally, while I can’t say that they’re going to be my next favorite band, I’d still go check them out at a festival to see if maybe these songs leave more of a mark in a live scenario.
Tracklist
I’ll Give You Hell
Bimbo (Lambretta cover)
Remedy
Tell Me Why
Frozen Swan
WWM
Fire
Child of the Night
When the Lights Go Out
No Slave
Theater of Tragedy
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