REVIEW: ARCH ENEMY - Deceivers

 

ARCH ENEMY - Deceivers

Century Media Records

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This is definitely a solid more consistently good release than their predecessor 'Will To Power'.  It has good rhythms and melodies that they seemed to go back to but never as good as the first 3 Arch Enemy albums in their established discography.  I don't think it's ever going to be what it once was but at least they're making new albums.  Alissa has better vocals than Angela to me but Johan fit in the first 3 releases.  They had hallmark rhythms in the early days that 'Deceivers' seemed to touch upon.  And with Jeff Loomis on lead guitar fits where Nick I don't think did and Christopher yes in the early days.

AE is Michael's band after he left Carcass spending time working on two albums with them 'Necroticsm' and 'Heartwork'.  I suppose he wanted his own style of melodic melodies and so forth.  'War Eternal' got a lot of negative press too being there were only 3 songs that I care to listen to.  But 'Deceivers' seems to be a rebirth of magic melodies that they've constructed.  And Alissa is consistent as well lighting up with her brutal vocals some clean, too!  But not many at that.  I believe that this is an album with multiple combinations of clean, heavy and heavier guitars with Jeff contributing his lead guitar amazing licks.

It seems as though there's multiple contributions in the songwriting, though I believe Michael still has the bulk of the songwriting and melodies.  This is a pretty fresh hitting release but with Angela, 'Wages of Sin' probably was her best.  For Alissa, this is her best most diverse attack on the vocal department.  These guys refuse to go away.  I tell you, some of the songs they released before this album came out I didn't like.  But when I heard the whole album it reigned supreme.  It's not entirely brutal, there are segments of clean vocals and melodies.  But it seemed to fit in the direction it took with a more progressive type of melodic death.

I had to order this CD because I think it's one that I'm going to play to death.  A lot on here I hold to be true to what metal I'm in favor of.  The guitars have a lot of highlights.  And the vocals as well.  Production quality is fantastic which made the album more likable.  I didn't rate this higher than a "B" because I think it didn't hit higher than that mark.  Pose more melodic riffs I would've probably hit a higher score of.  But yes, this didn't to me deserve any negative marks really.  A really well arranged melodic death metal release that  they can chalk up to a successful contribution to the metal community.

Ryan “Death8699” Fanucchi