Arch Enemy
Burning Bridges
Century Media
This album, along with a very healthy and angry movement, will restore metal to all its glory. That’s a pretty bold statement, Dave…
It certainly is, and I know there’s a hell of a lot of great metal and great metal bands that’ve been making excellent music all through the Nineties and the Eighties and before, sure. But those who remember the pre-extreme metal days when death metal simply exploded will remember one major standout, Carcass, whom I heard referred to as “the Ramones of death metal…”
Well, Arch Enemy not only contains Michael Amott from Carcass, but his brother Chris from Armageddon, Johan Liiva from Carnage, Daniel Erlandsson from In Flames, and Sharlee D’Angleo from Mercyful Fate. Arch Enemy is a death metal supergroup! Can it be so?!
It is, and this album burns!
And its greatness doesn’t lie in death metal, no, I wouldn’t say this is a death metal album at all. What they’ve done is taken every single classic metal riff from bands as unlikely as Ratt, Van Halen, and I think I even heard a Ted Nugent break somewhere, with all the melodies and power chords, adding in an overdose of classic death metal rhythm and surprisingly lucid vocals. In short, Arch Enemy can really rock, and they can be as brutal as anyone out there. You get eight songs, averaging four minutes a piece, and you’ll swear you heard part of each one somewhere before… My favorites were “The Immortal,” “Burning Bridges” and “Demonic Science.”
Century Media, 1453-A 14th St., Suite 324, Santa Monica, CA 90404; http://www.centurymedia.com
