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Arch Enemy - War Eternal

Published June 04 2014


*
=Staff's pick

Tempore Nihil Sanat (Prelude In F Minor)
Never Forgive, Never Forget*
War Eternal*
As The Pages Burn
No More Regrets
You Will Know My Name
Graveyard Of Dreams
Stolen Life
Time Is Black*
On And On
Avalanche
Down To Nothing
Not Long For This World


Genre Heavy Metal/Melodic Death Metal
Alissa White-Gluz
Vocals
Tracks 13
Michael Amott
Guitar
Running time 48 Min.
Nick Cordle
Guitar
Label Century Media
Sharlee D'Angelo
Bass
Release 09 June 2014
Daniel Erlandsson
Drums
Country Sweden/USA/Canada
-
Keyboard
Producer Michael Amott/Arch Enemy
Similar artists ---

I haven't listened to Arch Enemy for a very long time, but when the singer swap from Angela Gossow to Alissa White-Gluz became official earlier this year, I felt an urge to check out what the band has accomplished with its new release War Eternal. Alissa sings okay, but I also feel that there's a slight piece of crushing power missing. Her performance is absolutely not poor and I won't even bother to compare it to Angela's efforts, but some of the music's great content ends up hidden behind a voice that mainly wheezes itself through the songs.

I personally think that it's a bit of shame that Arch Enemy chooses vocalists with this type of voice, because the band's music equals highly powerful heavy metal, with influences of thrash and death metal, and the songs would, in my opinion of course, have turned out even more attractive and captivating with a regular metal singer, whose input, in a perfect world, had lifted this material to a higher and more glorious dimension.

Elegant guitar parts stream almost all throughout the record to combine the brutal impression with melodic moments. It's quite easy to be deceived by this music and to believe that it's more brutal than it actually is. By experience, I am familiar with tons of people that label music only by listening to what the singer achieves. The total production is high-powered to me and I like the album's approach, which feels like it's coming straight at you like a ton of bricks. All in all, I enjoy this release and its energetic appearance, and therefore hand out 7 chalices.

See also review of: Khaos Legions , Doomsday Machine , Anthems Of Rebellion , Wages Of Sin , Dead Eyes See No Future

Performance
Originality
Production
Vocals
Songwriting

7

6

8

6

7

 
Summary



7 chalices of 10 - Tobbe


Related links:

www.archenemy.net
www.facebook.com/archenemyofficial