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Review: Arch Enemy, O2 Academy
What more romantic way to spend Valentine’s Day than in the company of three exceedingly loud metal bands?
Now that Ville Valo has hung up the guyliner and disbanded HIM, there’s clearly a vacancy in the world of gothic metal. Sartorially, Sweden’s Tribulation certainly fit the bill, doing the full pasty-faced, bucketloads-of-slap thing, with all the skeletal trappings, that has enthralled generations of the pale and sulky.
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Foppish guitarist Jonathan Hultén goes the extra mile by sporting what appears to be a girlfriend’s blouse as he minces, poses and pirhouettes around the small allocated area of stage in front of the headliner’s gear, taking an exaggerated bow at the end of each song.
Under the bonnet, however, there’s rather more going on than the teen girl catnip of trembly-lipped Valo’s lachrymose pop-metal, which perhaps explains Tribulation’s continuing credibility in the often snooty world of extreme metal. They’ve never completely shed their death metal origins, notably in Johannes Andersson’s growly vocals, but their music has spun off in new and unexpected directions, evolving with each album.
Clocking in at more than ten minutes, the epic Suspiria de Profundis takes in long, haunting instrumental passages as it disappears down by-ways into hypnotic, psychedelic prog. The lengthy organ intro to Strange Gateways Beckon hints at a trip into Ghost-style Satanism before resolving into catchy melodic death metal. Like the earlier Nightbound, set closer The Lament underlines their confidence in new album Down Below, keeping one foot in the underground while courting the mainstream with its big hooks. The Academy was mostly empty when they came on at an absurdly early hour; by the time they leave, it’s filled up comfortably with appreciative punters.
“Be my valentine, Jari!” bellows an over-excited punter. He might be joshing, but judging from the applause Wintersun receive there are an awful lot of people here to see former Ensiferum multi-instrumentalist Jari Mäenpää’s band.
Originally a solo project, for which Mäenpää wrote and performed most of the music, Wintersun has evolved into a full-time band whose third album, the arboreally-themed The Forest Seasons, topped the charts back home in metal-loving Finland.
It’s fair to say that much of the recordings’ subtlety is lost in the bludgeon of this performance, for which all the keyboard parts are pre-recorded, but the well-drilled band certainly succeed in opening up a mosh pit. Few Wintersun songs clock in at less than 10 minutes in duration and most of them stretch on towards the 15 minute mark. They’re at their best mining Mäenpää’s folk metal background for the likes of Sons of Winter and Stars, which is packed with sweeping melodies and chanted choir vocals reminiscent of Tyr (members of whom contributed to the recording).
Arch Enemy are a band whose time has come. But it’s taken long enough. Tonight the Academy is packed, but the band’s previous appearance here, supporting Kreator back in December 2014, was less well attended. It also seemed rather baffling that an act of this calibre should be supporting the solidly second division veteran German thrashers nearly 20 years into their career. Clearly, the metal audience was slow to catch on, but new album Will to Power has proven Arch Enemy’s most successful to date. This upswing in fortunes has certainly put a spring in their step.
After Motorhead’s Ace of Spades is blasted through the PA, drummer Daniel Erlandsson takes his position and Michael Amott appears, hunched over his Flying V as usual, provoking a huge roar of approval as he picks out the staccato intro riff to The World Is Yours. He’s swiftly joined by bassist Sharlee D’Angelo, fellow guitarist Jeff Loomis and – in a riot of multi-coloured hair – livewire vocalist Alissa White-Gluz.
It’s the last night of a long tour, but she simply doesn’t stop moving all evening: headbanging, swinging her microphone stand, scaling the drum riser and bouncing up and down as she covers every inch of the stage while emitting a cathartic guttural bellow that puts many a male death metaller to shame. Anyone still harbouring any doubts about the vitality-enhancing properties of a vegan diet need look no further for evidence to the contrary.
She’s one reason why the revamped Arch Enemy line-up is on such a roll. The other is Loomis, whose prog-metal background makes him the perfect foil for Amott. Underpinning it all is the latter’s old-school melodic metal sensibility, which makes Arch Enemy such a potent gateway drug to extreme metal for more conservative Iron Maiden fans.
Rather than simply finding a niche and sticking to it, they also demonstrate a new willingness to take risks. Sandwiched between The Eagle Flies Alone and As the Pages Burn, Reason to Believe is not only conventionally sung but also fits broadly into the power ballad category – both traditionally anathema to the world of death metal. Nonetheless, nobody here is complaining.
Indeed, the setlist couldn’t be better. Sure, there’s a natural concentration on the two albums White-Gluz has recorded with the band – War Eternal and Will to Power – but these are among the best Arch Enemy have produced. She also seems quite happy with older crowd favourites originally sung by her predecessor Angela Gossow, such as the thrashy Dead Eyes See No Future and ferocious main set closer We Will Rise, both from 2003’s Anthems of Rebellion.
There’s no let up in the pace through an extended encore that concludes with a fiery Nemesis, which sees White-Gluz wringing every last drop of audience participation out of the sated crowd. Valentine’s Day aural massacre successful, then. Who needs chocolates and flowers?
All photos by Mike Evans
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