Arch Enemy - Khaos Legions - Review

Alright, here we are again with another album review. This time I'll be reviewing the brand spanking new Arch Enemy opus, Khaos Legions! I've been waiting for this one for awhile and have basically been chomping at the bit to review the album since I conducted my Interview with Angela Gossow. Check that out here.


Alright I have a confession to make, I love this fucking band and have for years but I'd also like to say I was a little disappointed with their last album, Rise Of The Tyrant. Which it was a "good" album it just didn't stand up well with the older material. 


Very happily that is not the case with this album, this is a complete return to form for the band. They have stated that they spent over a hundred thousand euro making this album, and believe me it shows. The sounds is crystal clear, the production is amazing. And everyone in the band is performing at "what might be" the best they have to date. 


Angela's voice has never been better, she's really brought it up to another level for this album and once again proves that she can rock harder than most men behind the mic. And still remain one of the most beautiful women in metal at the same time. 


Tracks like, Blood Stained Cross, Through The Eyes Of A Raven, and Thorns In My Flesh, all show that she is one of the premiere extreme metal vocalists, and shall remain so for many years to come. I could not be happier with her performance. 

The Amott brothers prove once again that they are capable of making some of the most breakneck riffing and can also switch at the drop of a hat into a beautiful and heartfelt melody. 


Yesterday Is Dead And Gone, Bloodstained Cross, and Cult Of Chaos, show the pure brutaillty they are capable of, while The three instrumentals, Khaos Overture, We Are A Godless Entity, Turn To Dust, and the acoustic track, Snow Bound, Prove they can still inject more than enough skill and emotion to keep even the most judgmental guitar tech happy at the same time. I can also say that I don't think they have ever sounded better. The guitar sound they have on this album is wonderful! 


Then we have Sharlee D'Angelo, this man is without a fraction of a doubt one of my favorite bass players thats ever walked the earth. Not only is he in Arch Enemy "and slaying it here I might add" but he's also played in both King Diamond AND Mercyful Fate. Sharlee, I have a mancrush on you bro! 


Ok, enough hero worship. Sharlee doe's exactly what he needs to do. He holds the low register in check while adding in his fresh and unique style of playing. It perfectly meshes with this album! 


Last but not least we have, Daniel Erlandsson. While I'm not going to say he's doing anything groundbreaking behind the kit, I can tell you he's doing exactly what needs to be done for this album. And really this might be his best work to date. 


Odd to praise a drummer, Thats normally what I'm critical of. Nice to be surprised! 


All in all I have to say this is not your normal Arch Enemy album, that much is for sure. But I can tell you without a doubt and you can tell everyone you heard it here first. They are back and they are slaying. Loved every track of this album, and I can say this will go down as my favorite Arch Enemy album to date. They have outdone themselves and I cannot wait until their US tour. You can bet your bottom dollar I'll be front and center punishing my body! 


Do yourself the favor of BUYING this album!  If you've been a fan of this band in the past or you're just learning about them this is the album for you. 




10/10 

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Angela Gossow - Interview - Arch Enemy

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Also be sure to check out the links below for all the information you need concerning Arch Enemy and Angela Gossow. 

Arch Enemy Official Facebook

Angela Gossow Official Facebook

The Official Arch Enemy Website

Arch Enemy on Myspace

Also, Click here for my review of the new album, Khaos Legions

Well here we are, As a die hard fan of this beautiful and extremely talented vocalist. I have to say this interview was truly a pleasure. I've seen Arch Enemy perform live before and they always bring it! And really is there any other woman in metal right now who can rock as hard as Angela? I highly fucking doubt it. Be sure to pick up the new album, "Khaos Legions" When it's released! Support the bands you love. Buy the freaking albums! 

Shawn: Angela, Thanks for taking the time to sit down for this interview. I'm guessing you've been extremely busy lately with the new album "Khaos Legions" Guessing you've been doing tons of Promotion lately. Just how busy have you been lately? Had any time for yourself?



Angela: Well, I always manage to squeeze in my bodyrock.tv workout and I make sure I go out walking or running every day. But besides that its just promotion, pre-production for our very busy summer festival season (dates below), working on new merch designs, stage production (we are designing new elements and video projections) and routing for our upcoming tours in the US September), Asia (October), India (November) and a headline tour in Europe (December). I am up to my throat in work and rehearsals as usual.If you can, catch us live @ these shows we play during the Summer months:

14-May-2011 - Boulevard Festival @ C.O.C. Stadium, Casablanca (Morocco)
27-May-2011 - Metalfest Open Air Switzerland, Pratteln
28-May-2011 - Metalfest Open Air Germany, Dessau
29-May-2011 - Metalfest Open Air Austria, Mining
31-May-2011 - Majestic Music Club, Bratislava (Slovakia)
01-June-2011 Megaclub, Katowice (Poland)
02-June-2011 Eskulap, Poznan (Poland)
04-June-2011 - Metalfest Open Air Hungary
05-June-2011 - Metalfest Open Air Czech Republic
18-June-2011 - Metaltown 2011, Gothenburg (Sweden) 23-June-2011 - Kulturfabrik, Luxembourg 25-June-2011 - Graspop Metal Meeting Dessel (Belgium)
01-July-2011 - Matrix, Bochum (Germany) 02-July-2011 - Fortarock Festival Park Brakkenstein, Nijmegen (Netherlands)
09-July-2011 – Sonisphere Globe Arenas Open Air, Stockholm (Sweden)
10-July-2011 – Sonisphere Knebworth, Apollo Stage (UK)
12-July-2011 - Metal Camp, Tolmin, Slovenia
14-July 2011 - Lez' Art Scenique Festival, Selesat (France)
15-July-2011 - Sonisphere Spain, Getafe-Open Air 22-July-2011 - Tuska, Suvilahti, Helsinki (Finland)
30-July-2011 - MetaLmorphosiS 2011 (Cyprus) 18-August-2011 - Summer Breeze Open Air Dinkelsbühl (Germany)
17-July-2011 - Kavarna Rock Festival, Kavarna, Bulgaria


Shawn: The brand new video for "Yesterday is dead and gone" was just released last week. Can you tell us a bit about the creation of the music video? Also the video reminds me of some of the action in the news. With the rebellions in Egypt and Libya. Was this the statement you wanted to make?



Angela: Yes, the whole album is very inspired by the current Zeitgeist. Rebellion, revolution and personal freedom have always been central themes in my lyrics and right now I can see it unfold in real time in front of my very eyes all over the world and esp. in North Africa and the Middle East. These people have suffered dictatorship for too long and now are willing to go all the way to fight for their basic human and social rights. It is frightening as there are many casualties but at the same time it is a victory of human strength and the ability to fight for what is right - for the future of their children and grand-children. ’Yesterday Is Dead And Gone’ deals exactly with this scenario of uprising and fighting the authorities a corrupt government has put in place, to see the old world go up in flames and make way for a new and better one. We wanted to get that feel in the video as well.

Shawn: "Yesterday is dead and gone" Is the only track I've heard so far off the forthcoming album. And it really sounds like a return to form for the band. What are your opinions? Are you pleased with the outcome of the new album? and How do you it stacks up to the older material?



Angela: This song is very Arch Enemy-esque. Maybe not the most original track, but when you hear it you know this is Arch Enemy. We have a great variety of songs, tempo and influences on the album. Going from ’Arch Enemy trademark’ to classic metal (Under Black Flags We March), death metal (City Of The Dead), thrash metal (Bloodstained Cross), some black metal (Cult Of Chaos) and a quite progressive track called ’Through The Eyes Of The Raven’. It is very varied – so you def. have not heard it all when you heard ’Yesterday Is Dead And Gone’!



Shawn: You are truly an inspiration to metal females all over the world. And have been for a while. How doe's this make you feel? and does this add any pressure to you when your making new music?



Angela: I am a green, liberal, raw food vegan, sport-fanatic atheist anarchist – the perfect role model for everybody out there, haha.. Not just women ;-) Seriously, I am very honest and open about who I am and what I believe in – I want to trigger people’s brains to start thinking for themselves and I hope I can get this message across. I am not really thinking in gender categories at all though. I don’t feel any pressure as I am simply being myself. I am not trying to portrait a different personality then who I really am. Now, that would be hard work.. A lot of people do that. The ‘public’ personality and the ‘private’ personality. Kinda schizophrenic.


Shawn: With "Khaos Legions" Coming out next month, Whats next for the band?



Angela: I have completely booked up 2011 and 2012 with shows. We will do the EU festivals, then go straight to the US in September, then do Asia in October (Loupark 2011 – hells yeah!), India in November (first time for us!), back for a headline club tour in EU in December, have one week off in January 2012, then we continue to tour in Eastern Europe, Greece, Turkey, Israel (also for the first time), then go to Australia in February, South- and Latin-America in March/April, then straight into the EU festival season again with maybe a summer tour in the US wedged in as well. We plan to release a DVD in the autumn 2012 (with lots of footage from all kinds of crazy places in this world) so we have an excuse to keep touring ;-) Then we plan to release a new album in the spring of 2013. I am a tough manager and I am not leaving any room for errors, mental breakdowns and personal problems, haha. The Arch Enemy machine keeps rolling.

Shawn: I was lucky enough to see you guys perform live in Charlotte North Carolina during the Ozzfest tour(2005), Even got my signed copy of the "Doomsday Machine" after waiting in line at the fye tent. And it was truly a pleasure to meet you and see you perform live. Can we look forward to some extensive touring of the United States for the new album? The metal fans over here are in some serious need of some Pure Fucking Metal!



Angela: Oh yes! We have just gotten an awesome line-up together for our upcoming US tour in September.. We are going to have a very American high energy extreme metal band with us, plus a cool, young yet old-school trash-metal band and an exotic black/oriental metal band with a very lovely female bass player.. Let the guessing game begin ;-)



Shawn: I know you've been doing tons of touring since the 2007 release of "Rise of the Tyrant" But Why did it take you guys so long to get back into the studio? Your fans have been ravenous for more!



Angela: Oh, we released ROTT then threw ourselves in a tour bus or in a plane, did a couple of rounds across the globe, released ‘Tyrants Of The Rising Sun – Live In Japan’ in 2008, kept touring, released ‘The Root of All Evil’ in 2009, toured some more and then finally we started to get bored with our own music in 2010 and went into the studio right after our UK tour in November last year.. I had all that planned out in the beginning of 2009 already and we stuck to that plan of course. I am Ze Dscherman manager who keeps everybody in line and on course, haha.



Shawn: What are some of your personal musical inspirations? And what got you into metal in the first place?



Angela: I am a child of the early 90ies death and thrash metal scene. Morbid Angel, Entombed, Carcass, Dismember, Edge Of Sanity, Obituary, Death, Massacre, Slayer, Coroner, Testament, Kreator, Destruction, Master, Napalm Death.. These bands have been the soundtrack of my life ever since. I love the energy, fire, passion, brutality and intensity of this music. It gives me hope, strength, joy, relief.. It makes me feel really fucking good! That’s why I got into it and that’s why I listen to it ‘til the day I fall out of my rocking chair and gasp my last breath.. Pull The Plug!

Shawn: Ozzy era or Dio era black sabbath?


Angela: I love Dio to death. Dio-era!


Shawn: Well Angela, Thank you very much for doing this interview. We've reached the end here, if there’s anything you would like to add or share feel free. The final word is yours!


Angela: Be yourself, think for yourself, question all authorities and so-called ‘truths’ and stay pure fucking metal! Hope to thrash with you all out there! Get “Khaos Legions’ and support the bands you love. Music must never die!

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Roman - Ceremonial Perfection - Interview

As you know i recently completed a review of Ceremonial Perfections Debut album "Alone in the End" The drummer and i have been in contact since then, Really humble and overall awesome guy. So of course the next step was Interviewing him right? lol of course! 


Still only 17 years and he's Already for a very successful album under his belt and VERY extensive touring. This band, "While they are a new band" Has no where to go but up from here. 
I have Great expectations for their next album! 


If you haven't heard of them yet, BUY the album and Like them on Facebook. 
This band deserves some attention. 
Click here for the Official Website
Click here for the Myspace page
Click here for the Facebook page






Shawn
Good evening Roman, and thanks for taking the time do do this Interview. So Ceremonial Perfection was formed in 2007, So your a fairly new band. What has that been like? Its really hard for newer metal bands to make a name for them nowadays. Was it a challenge
to get where you are?


Roman 
First of all, thanks for reviewing our album "Alone in the end".
Yep, we are really young band. All we have at this moment is a result of hard work. It's really hard to reach something serious nowadays, and I'm trying to do anything useful for my band everyday. It's really hard, because people need to have an ordinary life too. So, sometimes I'm trying to make some time from my studies/hobbies/etc. And this work started, when we tried to book our "Russian Tour 2009" in Summer 2009. And you know, it's 2 years of hard-work, going-insane and getting results. And I fucking like it!

Shawn
Since the release of "Alone in the end" you guys have been touring pretty much nonstop it seems. Just how busy have you guys been lately?


Roman
That's right. We had a big Eastern Europe tour in January-February 2011, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Poland. It was a really successful tour. At this moment, we're booked up for a next 6 months : few gigs around Baltic countries in this spring, fests in summer, Ukrainian tour in September-October 2011, Polish tour in November 2011. And it's not the end! I promise. It's really great, but we have to compose new songs for a second album, so, we started to do it immediately after recording "Alone in the end". Lots of songs are ready now. 
But a hope is to live in a big tour-bus and play really great gigs everyday!

Shawn
What are the crowds like in Estonia? and are they better or worse than some of the other countries you've performed in? 

Roman
First of all, I would like to thank everyone who were beating the shit out of their bodies in the crowd at Club Tapper, at our album presentation in Tallinn. Without you  fuckin bastards, we would be nowhere. That was really awesome crowd and a best gig of my life, at this moment.
But, usually, crowd in Estonia is not so crazy. Lots of people standing in the end of the hall drinking beer, speaking with their friends and taking no notice to the band playing on the stage.
The most crazy crowd I've ever seen was in Poland. It was really great to play gigs there. Awesome open-minded people! Soon we will be back there and I'm really waiting for that.

Shawn
what do you think are some of your biggest influences? and what convinced you to start playing the drums?


Roman 
My influence is a metal music in general. Starting from Ozzy Osbourne and to really shitty-blasting grindcore. I just listen to different music in a time. At the moment my favorites are : Ozzy Osbourne, Murderdolls, Before The Dawn, Deadlock, Psyclone Nine, Pain, Arcane Grail. I listen to different music depending on my mood and things happening around me. But, my biggest influence and favorite music is silence, haha)) I really like it.
I've started playing drums when I was 13 (yepyep, I'm 17 now,hahaha).  I don't really remember why I started to do it. I just watched metal band's music videos and the only thing what interested me were drums. So I just tried to start playing and I really liked it. But I'm not satisfied with my drum-skills at this moment, I have to play more and more.

Shawn
The Album art for "Alone in the End" is fucking amazing! Who is the artist? and did you give him/her full creative control? or did you have specific ideas for what you wanted done? 

Roman
I really like our album art too. Artist is a Bjoern Goosses of Killustrations.com studio, who worked with such names as Amon Amarth, Kataklysm, Aborted, Six Feet Under etc. Working with Bjoern was great: we gave him a main concept and he started to work with it. He had full of freedom. He created a very simple image, dark and melancholic, different from most of the metal covers. And I think it's perfect for our music! We just to had to improve some small details after we received an example.

Shawn
Can you give us an idea of the concept behind the lyics on the album? 

Roman
The main idea is apocalypse. Only one man survived, and we try to describe what does he feel, what does he do and blablabla

Shawn
So what do you do outside of Metal? Pastimes? Hobbies?

Roman
I have a girlfriend to spend time with. Also, I'm studying at the moment.. Anything else? hmmm.. NO! I have played football for ~10 years, but it was boring, (cause I was a goalkeeper,) haha. I finished playing at the age of 12 or something like that, and started to play drums after that. Also, I like making fun of our guitar player Kirill. That's my hobbie, hahaha.
Hello, Kirill, I know you are reading that, motherfucker!


Shawn
Which do you prefer, Ozzy era or Dio era black sabbath? 


Roman
Ozzy! Definitely!


Shawn
Well that will conclude our interview, Thank you very much for taking the time to answer 
my questions. and if theres anything you would like to add or share feel free, 
The final word if yours!


Roman 
One more time, thanks for reviewing, interviewing and supporting us! You are the man! Hope to see you sometime in US! Also, thanks to all our fans for making our concerts insane, all our crew : Ivan Korshunov, Tiit Roosing and Karel Boggens of Nailboard Records!
Stay fucking heavy!

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