Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Arch Enemy
Label: Century Media
Release: 2009
Duration: 52:29
Rating: 2.5/5
There comes a time in a band’s life when you have to look back, clean out the attic and dust off the shelves. That goes double if the band has a fifteen-year career behind it. That’s exactly what the Swedish champions of melodic death metal Arch Enemy did with their new record The Root of All Evil. The guys, led by the “diva satanica” Angela Gossow, didn’t just throw together a best-of collection, though. They decided to re-record some of their best-known songs from the era of the first three records, when Johan Liiva handled the vocals. So let’s see how the roots of evil have grown ten-plus years after being planted.
In their first five years, Arch Enemy put out three excellent albums – Black Earth (1996), Stigmata (1998) and Burning Bridges (1999) – with Johan Liiva growling on vocals. Those early days were marked by the spectacular guitar wizardry of the guitar duo, brothers Michael and Christopher Amott, infectious, mighty, melodic riffs, and Liiva’s aggressive, thrashy vocals. After the live album “Burning Japa Live 1999”, Johan was kicked out of the band, with unsatisfying live vocal performances given as the official reason. Vocalist Angela Gossow stepped into his place. She has recorded four albums with the band so far, and she wowed everyone right from the start with her brutal vocals and relentless live shows. Plenty of fans wanted to hear how the Liiva-era songs would sound sung Angela’s way, and we got a taste of that at gigs, but now we can finally hear it on a studio record too. If we glance at the tracklist for a moment, we can see that Arch Enemy gave us only 12 songs from the first three records, plus a new track, The Root of All Evil, which is just a pile of sound effects, serves only as an intro and adds absolutely nothing to the picture of the album. Of the remaining twelve, Demoniality is an instrumental that isn’t exactly revolutionary in itself. So The Root of All Evil looks like Arch Enemy only skimmed the surface of their early career – they offer 4 songs from Black Earth, 3 from Stigmata and 5 from Burning Bridges. They could definitely have taken a cue from Iced Earth and their compilation record Days of Purgatory, which is the real bible on how to rework or re-record old songs with a new vocalist. I’d definitely have liked to hear at least Fields of Desolation, Black Earth, Tears of the Dead and Angelclaw too, but let’s see what Arch Enemy actually cooked up for us. You notice quickly that the guitars are tuned a bit higher, mostly because of Angela Gossow’s higher vocals, but they sounded much better in the original “drop D” tuning, which gave the songs a darker atmosphere and fit Johan’s vocals better. Even though the production is genuinely improved, with the brilliant producer Andy Sneap handling the mix, it still occasionally feels like something, especially the solos, is missing soul and feeling. The drums, on the other hand, are recorded much better and hit truly mightily in the background. The sore spot around Arch Enemy has always been the vocals, whether it’s Liiva or Angela – some people prefer the former, some the latter. Even though Angela has proven herself more than once, especially with her excellent vocal work on the last studio record, Rise of the Tyrant (mostly thanks to a more natural voice, since on earlier releases her vocals were ruined by a ton of effects and a processed, artificial sound), this time the vocals are once again the black mark on the album. They mostly sound monotonous and artificial, and worst of all, they kill the energy that Liiva brought to these songs. Angela does shine here and there (Silverwing), but despite all the criticism aimed at Johan, he brought soul and a ton of energy to these songs, which Angela unfortunately fails to do.
The Root of All Evil brings a much-improved sound that in places comes across as mighty, crushing and even alive. But overall, the record is a big letdown from something that promised a lot. For a better look at Arch Enemy’s Liiva era, listen to the remastered editions of the first three records instead, and still give the songs from this album a chance live, because they sound much, much better that way.
Lineup
Angela Gossow – vocals
Michael Amott – guitar
Christopher Amott – guitar
Sharlee D’Angelo – bass
Daniel Erlandsson – drums
Production
Arch Enemy
Tracklist
1. The Root Of All Evil (Intro)
2. Beast Of Man
3. The Immortal
4. Diva Satanica
5. Demonic Science
6. Bury Me An Angel
7. Dead Inside
8. Dark Insanity
9. Pilgrim
10. Demoniality
11. Transmigration Macabre
12. Silverwing
13. Bridge Of Destiny
