Arch Enemy - Wages of Sin

Some time ago on her MySpace blog, Angela Gossow wrote, "I personally believe the last two Arch Enemy albums were too harmless. We got to get the grit, bite, speed and danger back into our music. Less controlled, more riffs, melodies, solos, different parts, breaks, sudden changes." I couldn't agree more.

What frustrated me about these albums was that they were too soft for Gossow's voice. Ever since she linked up with vocal coach Melissa Cross, she's become one of the most formidable vocalists in metal, regardless of gender. Live, hearing her slide from a death growl up to a high shriek in the same breath is amazing. The band has this flamethrower for a lead instrument - why does it clutter up its songs with pretty clean tones and prog sections?

My favorite Arch Enemy album is Gossow's first with the band, 2001's Wages of Sin (on Century Media). On this album, the band established its present sound, a hybrid of power and melodic death metal. While its ingredients are the same as those of its successors, this album has a more "classic" feel. The songs are more exploratory and don't feel so tied to verse-chorus structures as later efforts, which seem to me like endless quests for the perfect anthem. Sure, choruses make anthems, but any metalhead would pick riffs over choruses, and Wages has riffs in spades. Even though some songs wander into that accursed clean tone territory, none are the blatant filler found on later albums. "The First Deadly Sin" is Slayer-esque, especially in the modulations up during vocals, while "Web of Lies" is simply well-written and well-played. Dig those cool bass runs, which would have never happened on the hyper-controlled last two albums.

Arch Enemy - The First Deadly Sin
Arch Enemy - Web of Lies

There's also an amusingly low-budget video for "Ravenous," which has become one of the band's signature songs.



Be sure to pick up the two-disc version of this album, the second disc of which contains cool covers and tracks from the Johan Liiva era. You can find this at CM Distro or The End.