Thank you for hitting the nail in the head.
Sad thing is, here is a once quite solid metal outfit prostitute themselves, betray everything that metal stands for and is supposed to represent, and adhere to pop music modus operandi. A pretty face and a hot bod do go a long way, so it seems. Pathetic and hypocritical. Even if you have long hair, dress in black and are covered in tattoos. Fake rebellious shit. Get your ass outta there Loomis, before you start losing sight as well.

I don't even give a shit about them "betraying metal". What I care about is them very clearly and obviously pushing the "We have a hot chick singer" thing while de-emphasizing the guys in the band that actually write most everything, while at the same time the music they write is also shallow pap because they use their hot singer as a crutch. That the singer is also a noted, proven crazy bitch is just window dressing. While I still wasn't a fan of the Angela albums after like the first three, and they did get progressively worse throughout those times and set up what their deal is now, at least Angela felt genuine and was a good vocalist.

Why would a guy fit better than a woman though?

This song doesn't suck because the singer is a woman, it sucks because her vocals are just bad by any standard and the writing is extremely generic. Pretty fucking lame...

But yeah, it doesn't really matter about the marketing all that much or "betraying metal." It's just cookie cutter, generic metal. If people were this self-righteous about recent Megadeth and Testament making similarly generic slop in their genre, maybe we'd have better standards.

Personally I liked the song. All this debating over whether or not they're relying on image in replacing Angela with Alissa seems kind of pointless when it was Angela's choice to have her as the replacement in the first place but whatever. I get that modern AE is a bit clean for many people but I feel like the more anthemic almost power metally approach they've taken recently is quite fun. My favorite AE era is admittedly the Johan era and I do think the last few Angela albums were getting kind of stale but tbh War Eternal felt quite a bit stronger to me and this single seems to be carrying that on. Maybe the altering between cool darker heavy riff and uplifting chorus is a bit cheesy but it doesn't bug me too much, plus the leadwork in AE has always been their biggest draw to me (especially Christopher's in the past) and this song still delivers the goods in that department as well.

Something you yourself just posted in the Myrkur thread fits so perfectly here.



If Mustaine and Chuck Billy were chicks, people would be infinitely more up in arms about their new music.

I was going to say the same thing here, but then I actually did think this song sucked. But it just seems so superfluous and pointless to bitch that much about the marketing angle. Yeah, it happens, so what? It's really not a big deal or a new thing that a female singer is marketed this way in a band like this. It is even possible for the music to be good in spite of that - but that isn't happening here.

If you think it's pointless, feel free to stay out of it. I, for one, very much enjoy doing it, and I enjoy reading it. Even though I really don't care about the band.


Yes, and then I'd actually care about it. Let's also distinguish between image - how the band presents itself - and marketing: if a band with a respectable image was defiled by shitty marketing by the label and hack journalists, that would annoy me, but if a band that makes good music has a shitty image, that'd be far worse. What if Bolt Thrower reformed with a White-Gluz lookalike frontwoman and they did the same thing, but they made kick-ass music with kick-ass vocals? You bet your ass I'd bitch about it. Or what if they started dressing like some shitty emo band? Of course you're gonna care about a band's image if you care about the band.

This entire thread reminds me of why I hate the majority of metal fans. Holy shit you guys take everything way too seriously.

If a band I liked had a lame image, I guess it would be kind of annoying for a second but it isn't like it would affect my enjoyment if I still liked everything else. At the end of the day it's the substance of the music that matters, not how they dress or what marketing focuses on. I've enjoyed stuff by Nightwish, After Forever, Delain, etc and they are similarly embellished female-fronted bands... only actually good.

Some of the replies here just sound like people wouldn't care how lame this song was if it wasn't marketed with a hot chick in a way that seemed like pandering to them. Like the image is more important than the song having no real good ideas.

It's basically the same as every In Flames related thread. It's just a breeding ground for 95% of posters to circle jerk about how "unmetal" the band is and flex their scene cred muscles. I haven't really enjoyed AE for years but I don't make a point to find threads about them just to talk about how shitty they are. It just seems desperate and immature.

Serious. I can't believe the hatred for this band.

Then again, it stems from disappointment. I felt the same way about In Flames for a long time. Eventually I accepted the IF I first found was gone and got over it.

Beyond the marketing angle, this band is just so fucking boring. The music feels very boring and uninspired - very generic and lacking in any real ideas of any kind, it's just kind of "there", but beyond that, notice how every single music video is exactly the same (the band playing in a warehouse with a blue-ish filter over it and Alissa posing angrily with all sorts of awkward hand gestures), all the lyrics follow the same line of vague & non-descript, not to mention completely & likely intentionally inoffensive "angry but empowering" bullshit without ever actually saying anything...it all just comes across as totally uninspired and toothless. I'm sure the old Liiva-era stuff was great, but Amott must have more passion for Spiritual Beggars these days, as I've read numerous interviews where he's claimed how much he despises death metal & refuses to ever listen to it, I think that really says it all...

I think I'm just bitter because of the thought of Loomis and Amott writing together. Amott hasn't been good for a while but I was hoping that Loomis would reignite something and the two of them would fucking slay on this record which would end up sounding like extreme melodeath with crazy ass Nevermore riffs and solos. What a disappointment.

Not even Craig Pillard would save that shitty song. The video is the same fucking crap as the last 4 or 5 videos.

AE is a band on autopilot ever since Liiva left. Angela was never the problem, Amott is.

This sums up Arch Enemy´s REAL problem. No Angela, No Alissa, no marketing.. the uninspiring sonwriting is the real problem of this band.

That cheesy happy-sounding chorus made me sick. I can take some lame half-assed groovy/metalcorey melodeath but that flowery lead in the chorus is too much. Simply terrible

How Amott went from Dark Recollections to this I will never know.

Everybody here is partially right to some degree. Gossow was infinitely more respectable and never came off as a gimmick or eye candy, while White-Gluz absolutely does. Whether or not she's a shit person is totally irrelevant because that really has no bearing on the music here. This song is boring and lame just like basically everything the band has done since Gossow joined. However that was/is neither Gossow's nor White-Gluz's fault, because Amott has been the sole writer since the beginning if I'm remembering correctly. He's the one who went from challenging himself to just milking a formula, he's the one who has written Ravenous and We Will Rise like sixty times in a row with diminishing returns every time, it's all his problem.

I've actually always had a soft spot for Doomsday Machine thanks to the frustrating force of nostalgia, but coincidentally I relistened to it a week or so ago and I actually think it holds up. The Amott brothers played off each other very well, tracks like I am Legend/Out for Blood and especially Nemesis are fucking ferocious in their speed, I was surprised to see I still liked it despite its numerous problems. But the point of this paragraph is that I realized the album is LOADED with Nevermore-isms. There's a lot of influence in the riffs and leads, so suddenly Loomis' addition doesn't seem so weird.

But really DM was the last time Amott tried to outdo himself. Ever since then he's just settled in a niche and hasn't expanded much further, and tracks like this really showcase that. With White-Gluz having an incredibly versatile voice that she never gets to show off and the guitarists both being phenomenal players that are beholden to a weak and repetitive formula, I think Arch Enemy is probably second only to Limp Bizkit in terms of "awful bands somehow loaded with talented musicians".

Checked the song out just to see how bad it was, and I couldn't even finish it. Just lame as fuck. Literally feels like they were aiming for middle-of-the-road. So I guess job well done?

And yeah, the newest vocalist absolutely feels like a gimmick/eye candy to attract incel types.

This. Great musicians who are underperforming. Thaks Mr. Amott.

I have followed White-Gluz since her early days in The Agonist(for me their second almost was the most interesting metal core influenced album in years, very varied and dynamic). I see quite fustrating that her clean vocals are totally wasted in Arch Enemy because she is there just be a copy of Angela Gossow.

Yeah there's some truth to this. When I first discovered The Agonist I thought they were terrible and I'm still not very fond of their first two albums but I actually dig the hell out of Prisoners. That album is a pretty convincing argument for the quality of Alissa as a singer imo and the accompanying songwriting still surprises me with the expanded creativity and versatility that they demonstrated on it. I don't think she does bad at all in AE but honestly if they found a tasteful way to use her vocal capabilities more thoroughly it might help them diversify as a band which at this point they could benefit from. Plus as a huge Loomis/Nevermore fan of course I'm greatly disappointed by his lack of songwriting contributions as he definitely thinks outside the Amott box. I still enjoy what they're doing ultimately but I'd appreciate some twists.

I don't know what's the point, there are many bands that are working their asses off in good stuff and no one gives it a try, and most of the people prefer talking shit on stuff we already knew it was going to be like this.

I know many people would hate this. But why not to add clean vocals? at least it would be something new in Arch Enemy. Of course, both Alissa and the othe guitar player should contribute more, this new blood should be felt when you listen to the music. Sadly its not the case and Amott prefers to write the same songs over and over again.

If they went down a more power metal route with clean and harsh vocals I think they'd better

I think the last thing that needs to happen is to let Alissa contribute anything. The Agonist is garbage, but they're less garbage without her. That's like a feat.
I have no comment on Loomis as I've never listened to anything he did.

RIP Arch Enemy: Black Earth to Burning Japan

Without hearing the bulk of their material after Doomsday Machine I can't say for sure if they've explored this more than they did on Anthems. Chris did some clean vocals on that album and if you want to hear him in full you'll have to jump over to his band Armageddon. He's quite good, and as a writer I'd say he's more competent than his brother. Michael has lost his ability to write good melodic death metal. From the things I've heard since 2003 he's just not cutting it like he used to. The new song was nothing short of mediocre at best. Alyssa isn't helping much and she's been hit or miss with me, sometimes with guest appearances for the same band. For the most part I could do without her, but here I don't think anything substantial was gained.

The old albums with Liiva were another breed entirely. I still look back at that stuff without wide eyes. I remember back in high school a friend showing me "Dark Insanity" and it being too heavy for me, but "Enemy Within" was awesome. To this day I still enjoy Wages of Sin but those first three albums are monstrously good. Liiva's an acquired taste, as I know he was for me, but in the end he's the best vocalist they ever had.

Liva was a monster. I don't know how he got that reputation as a bad vocalist. I remember everyone loving the early albums (myself included) and then in an interview Mike said they fired him because he wasn't good and all the fans jumped on that and ran with it. Stigmata is an absolute monster of an album and Burning Bridges is sick thanks in a big part to Liva. He sounded fanatical.

Liiva always sounded lazy, just grunting like a log. He could've worked, but he didn't. The music on those first three albums was leagues better than the Gossow and beyond years, no doubt about it, but he did everything he could to make them difficult to listen to. I still rock Black Earth and Burning Bridges more than any of the Gossow albums (excepting Doomsday Machine, for reasons mentioned above), but he sucked and kept them from being top tier records, in my opinion.

Honestly that's the exact reason why I think The Root of All Evil is their best album. The only real flaw with that is that the guitars are tuned up to their new tuning instead of the lower and heavier sound of the Liiva era. Other than that, it's the only time they ever had both good music and at least passable vocals (Gossow was never anything special and had a tendency to layer over herself too much but I'd take that over the damn near parody-level grunting of Liiva).

Remember when Michael Amott was in Carcass and that he wrote music that was actually compelling and that evolved through the years instead of doing the music equivalent of water stagnation? These were the good days.

I think Liiva was hit or miss. There are some tracks where he worked (Fields of Desolation, for example) and some where he was just outright awful (Pilgrim comes to mind). I still prefer the original Liiva albums to the re-recordings, even though Gossow is more consistently listenable. The Root of All Evil just sounds so... sterile. "Beast of Man" doesn't explode out of the speakers the way it's supposed to, and the whole thing just sounds lifeless.

It's a bland and lifeless production too, which is also another missing part of the equation. The guitars aren't punching. The singer isn't standing out.

Angela is TOO layered and lifeless. I'll take the raw of Johan over the ridiculously processed vocals of Angela and Alissa.

Alissa would contribute with a more varied vocal approach, the music itself should be taken by the guitar players, and the biggest problem would be here.

Its a matter of taste but i still maintain that The Agonist´s second album was a pretty original piece of metal core, with many interesting elements. And Alissa´s vocal approach and aesthetics/performance(the ones who almost everybody hate so much in Arch Enemy) didnt sound out of place there.

But its Arch Eneny which brings fame and money and I guess she gave more importance to it than a truly interesting music career/development.

I think Liivas vocals suck on Black Earth, but he got a lot better on the next 2 albums, more diverse too instead of the growly shout on Black Earth

Variation means very little if there's not a bit of substance to begin with.

Also Alissa doesn't sound out of place in The Agonist because she fits the whiny aesthetic correctly. There's nothing original about them.

I heard a new single the other day. "The Eagle Flies Alone" or some stupidly named shit. What a truly horrible song. It's even worse than the first single released! And the video is atrocious. The singer sounds horrific and the lyrics are embarrassing. And holy fuck... I mean look how out of place Loomis is! Best guitarist in metal and he just sits there and plays solos. It's unreal to me. Total waste of talent, and waste of an album. One of the saddest examples of "what could have been" !!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjF1rmSV1dM

Oh my, how embarrassing.

Funniest part: drummer at 2:16.

Even the fanboys in the YouTube comment section seem to be losing their enthusiasm a bit

The harsh vocals are horribly out of place here! I keep thinking of Armageddon's Crossing the Rubicon, that's what it would sound like with clean vocals.
Imagine having JB Christoffersson on vocals here (and Loomis let lose), it would be the most badassest power metal album of the century!

So they basically built a song around a stolen riff from Dismember's "Dreaming in Red".

Metal bands need to stop doing music videos, such a cringe inducing embarrassment.