Enter The machine

Taking back my Soul

Nemesis

My Apocalypse

Carry The Cross

I am Legend/Out For Blood

Skeleton Dance

Hybrids Of Steel

Mechanic God Creation

Machtkampf

Slaves Of Yesterday

Michael Amott : " I think all great metal needs that killer mix of classic riffs and ripping solos, something that has been a bit of a dying art recently. We are doing our best to recreate that mix on this new album, and one thing I can guarantee is that there will be tons of guitar for fans to headbang to. All in all, I am really happy with the songs and I believe we have found the right balance of melody and brutality - the Arch Enemy trademark!"

Album artwork by Joachim Luetke (DimmuBorgir, Kreator)

Release date for Europe: 22.08.05

preview by Matthew "Newbreed99" Haumschild___

The very first thing I ask is, "Why did they name their new album after a Star Trek episode?" 

Enter The Machine  sounds good, but I don't believe it should have been on this CD. It has a "awakening" guitar riff that clearly doesn't belong on a metal CD. Granted, it's distorted and everything and it comes in with nice keyboards and all but AE could have done without it. Instead, they should have just started out straight with Taking Back My Soul. That song has an awesome intro on it's own. Thundering drums and an awesome guitar riff, not hyperfast or nothing, but good enough. 38 seconds later Angela makes her first appearance on this album and it sounds just superb! This is a nice slamming track! Bout time! I only had to wait 2:40 seconds to finally hear some singing (or growling). The Guitar solo too shouldn't be left out, Michael Amott placed the perfect solo for that intro. This all together is a marvelous second track that should have been the first track. 

Nemesis is a track that AE is really pushing here in the States'. They have a video and the TV stations like FUSE, MTV2, and MUCH Music use this video to promote the album not to mention that it gets tons of airplay on American and Canadian radio waves. It's a great track, nuff' said. It has this killer ultra fast guitar riff and the vocals are just commanding. I can just picture Angela taking command of the crowd with this track. 

Skeleton Dance's guitar intro is eerie and I thought took too long to get to the meat and potatoes of the song. It's a little slower but it still contains the heaviness of the album. I mention this track because the drumming is just superb not to mention that the guitar lines are addicting and are sufficiently complicated. I can see seas of kids banging their heads to this track. Best part is the halftime part of the song where they change it up completely and AE just shows off their amazing guitar skills. Now, the first time I heard Machtkampf I was a little shocked. Erlandsson nearly ripped of the exact drum intro to a song by Sepultura called "Territory". But after I kept listening to the song, I stopped caring. This song is the best one on the CD. It's fast as hell and so is the drumming and easily the heaviest song on the album. This song could have been on their "Enemy Within" album. I have noticed that on this track, Angela's voice is less emphasized and it more focused on the Amott's. The guitar solos on this track are just ridiculously fantastic. This song is worth buying the CD for.

 Although I have to point out that Carry The Cross and Hybrids of Steel aren't good tracks at all so skip them! Carry The Cross is very boring and I thought it was a waste of time even recording the track. It was extremely slow, dragging like guitars, it made me turn the track # real fast. And Hybrids of Steel has a bad introduction. It reminded me of a cheesy Judas Priest intro and as I continued listening to the song, I felt like I was back in the 80's. 

For quality, I couldn't have heard much better. It was acceptable my ears and to 995 of consumers. However…for audiophiles and myself in a bad mood, it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. 

The mix was fine by everyone else's standards but I still feel it could have been a little cleaner. The drum sounds were just plain awesome. The guitar and bass sounded great too and so did the vocals. Matter of fact, Angela's vocals never sounded better. So where's the problem? The overall mix sonic quality was just slightly below par. If I were to play this disc on a very expensive home theater (theatre for anyone outside the US) I would hear the EQ having way too much gain in the mid-range which is a sign for overcompensating for something like a bad low-end distortion. Who knows? I liked the CD (but the cover looks  unoriginal…wow…a skull on the front of a heavy metal CD...as if it was low budget or something. But then again, don’t judge a book by its cover. Same thing goes with CD’s I guess); is it CD of the year? No. Would I recommend it? Yeah, why not? It's a solid effort but AE has more potential than this but at least, in my opinion,  it is better  than "Anthems" by far. 
 

rating: 8/10 

Matthew Haumschild

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