Arch Enemy – War Eternal

Releasedate: 2014; Label: Century Media
By: Orkun Koksal

Arch Enemy was formed in 1996 by Michael Amott (ex-Carnage, ex-Carcass, Spiritual Beggars) as a supergroup side project. He recruited his longtime friend Johan Liiva (ex-Carnage, ex-Furbowl, ex-Arch Enemy, ex- NonExist, Hearse) as vocalist and his brother Christopher Amott (ex-Arch Enemy, Armageddon, Solo project) as second guitar player and, then unknown drummer Daniel Erlandsson as a session drummer to complete the first line-up. After releasing 3 studio albums and 1 live album, in 2000 vocalist Johan Liiva was asked to leave the band to be replaced by Angela Gossow. In 2012 Christopher Amott left the band for a second time to pursue a solo career and was replaced by Arsis guitar player Nick Cordle which followed by Angela Gossow’s departure as vocalist to focus solely on band’s management in 2014. She suggested The Agonist vocalist Alissa White-Gluz to take her place.

After auditioning Alissa joined the band but she didn’t want to leave her bandmates in The Agonist in an awkward position so she was going to front both bands but apparently the guys in The Agonist didn’t like the idea and she was fired. So, what we have here is Alissa’s first record with Arch Enemy and one of Arch Enemy’s best albums to date. Firstly they got rid of those anarchist lyrics like “chaos, war, resist, rebel, etc.” which started to become rather silly to be replaced by more personal and aggressive lyrics.
I had high hopes for the album after listening the first single “War Eternal” and I can clearly said I am not disappointed. The musicianship is at the top as it can be expected from Arch Enemy and the vocals are also fantastic! If anyone had any doubts about how Aliisa will fit to the band, I’m sure they got their answers right away after listening the album. In the recent years the band’s song writing process was based on a formula as “main riff, verse, chorus, verse, bridge, multiple solos, melodic dual harmony guitar parts, chorus, fade out” which started to make the band too predictable and boring to listen they got rid of it mostly on this album there are some songs which still incorporate the successful formula which had worked so far but they aren’t too apparent as on previous two albums. As always all music and most of the lyrics are written by Michael Amott with contributions from Nick Cordle on 7 songs and Daniel Erlandsson on 3 songs and Alissa on 5 songs.

Overall a really good album to listen but if you are a fan of the raw quality of first 3 albums, you will be disappointed.

Line up:
Alissa White-Gluz − lead vocals
Michael Amott − lead and rhythm guitar, keyboards
Nick Cordle − lead and rhythm guitar
Sharlee D’Angelo − bass guitar
Daniel Erlandsson – drums

Links:
Arch Enemy Official