Arch Enemy – Khaos Legions Is Chaotic At It’s Best

Khaos Legions Arch Enemy Interview – Michael Amott Doesn’t Find Arch Enemy EXTREME Enough!

Khaos Legions Review:

Well, the new Arch Enemy album, Khaos Legions, has been available for just over a month and the general consensus among reviewers is that it sucks. Just like kids who fabricate some pathetic identity through the association of being a part of an exclusive group that’s into an underground band ditch their affiliation as soon as said band signs to a major and goes mainstream, Arch Enemy fans and critics are ready to jump ship when the band shows signs of growth and diversity.

And you can criticize Arch Enemy all you want for playing into hard rock and some of their metal influences all you want, but can anyone argue the fact that one of their most popular songs (and one of my favorites), “Savage Messiah,” doesn’t sound like an Alice in Chains track?

True, Khaos Legions isn’t Wages of Sin or even Anthems of Rebellion (those were hungry albums), but it’s certainly nothing to smirk at and arguably better than either Doomsday Machine or Rise of the Tyrant. Also true: it’s different – suck it up and enjoy the musicianship and the song writing. Why should a band color within the lines for their fans’ expectations, limiting their talents, voice, and reach?

What you get on Khaos Legions, however, is a lot of melody, anthemic choruses, riffs that are slower than usual for Arch Enemy, a shit-ton of power metal (as defined by soaring guitar solos), thunderous rhythm, and Angela Gassow’s earnest death growls.

This “new direction” might rub fans the wrong way, and while there are a few tracks that could have been left on the cutting-room floor (at least one or two of the three instrumental tracks) to make it a tighter, more cohesive album, it certainly isn’t a failure by any measure (even by the diminutive size of your package). In fact, there are plenty of tough fucking tracks capable of getting an arena of metalheads into a full-on headbanging frenzy.

I like cheese as much as the next Cheddarhead, so I like the album’s intro, “Khaos Overture,” then again I’ve always liked those shitty intros where you get to hear the band “in” the studio, like Type O Negative’s intro to October Rust or (not in the studio) “T’n’T” on Dr. Feelgood or even the dialog on “Hot For Teacher.” What makes “Khaos Overture” cheesy is the voices over the city, the sirens, and the Optimus Prime (from Transformers) spoken word (wait, isn’t that the realm of Fear Factory?). Still, it serves as an excellent entry to the album’s real opener, “Yesterday is Dead and Gone” – a track I’ve previously reviewed (well, actually the video).

There’s a lot of speed metal influences apparent on this album as well as a number of bridges that sound very hard rock, but let’s face it, what else did these guys listen to when growing up. Yes, even the “heavy” and fast tracks on Khaos Legions peter out, slowing the tempo and becoming less melodic death metal, but I’ll say it, yet again, that this is not an album for the casual fan or someone looking for more of the same from Arch Enemy.

Find out what are the tracks you want to hear and the ultimate verdict after the jump…