Welcome back to the CD Odyssey, where I slowly but surely review every single record in my collection – in random order. Let’s get after it, shall we?
Disc 1907 is… Will to Power
Artist: Arch Enemy
Year of Release: 2017
What’s up with the Cover? You know, the usual. Four skulls and a couple of snakes, artfully arranged into a logo that is somewhere between Satan’s wet dream and a taxidermist’s trick gone wrong.
We’ve got the heads of a wolf, a goat, and a bat and right in the middle the Devil’s favourite plaything – people.
How I Came To Know It: I was only recently introduced to Arch Enemy and have been digging furiously through their back catalogue (furious at myself for having missed out until now). This was one of several finds on that journey.
How It Stacks Up: I’m not sure. I have seven Arch Enemy albums (see “furiously” modifier above) but they are all fairly new to me. I know I like this band a lot, so I’m going to assume “Will to Power” is around sixth best, since I can’t see one of my Arch Enemy records being lower than three stars.
Ratings: 3 stars
Arch Enemy has invaded my music collection a lot like their music would suggest – fast, aggressive, and with no apologies. “Will to Power” is yet another entry in their long, storied, and successful music canon/cannon. I keep coming back to this band for one simple reason: they’re great.
To fully appreciate Arch Enemy it is important to go in expecting ALL THE METAL. They don’t discriminate. Soaring guitar work of power metal, guttural growls of black metal, the groove of thrash, and the gloomy atmosphere of doom (albeit a sped up version). Arch Enemy isn’t prog in their approach to shifting gears mid-song, but rather students of all the styles, and have found a unique way to mix them together.
“Will to Power” is the second studio album by the band with new vocalist (and fellow Canadian!) Alissa White-Gluz. There isn’t a lot to separate White-Gluz and previous singer Angela Gossow in terms of quality. They are both excellent, able to bring melody and structure even while growling at you. White-Gluz is a bit more melodic, but this could also be the evolution of the band’s sound.
Case in point, “Reason to Believe” which features ‘regular’ vocals from White-Gluz where she shows that if she wanted to she can sing just as sweetly as any other rock goddess out there. Lest you think she’s going soft, she switches back to the growl for the chorus, tough as ever.
Holding down the album’s mid-range and gluing vocals drums and stylistic shifts together is the ever-present brilliance of Michael Arnott on guitar. The one constant through Arch Enemy’s storied career, Arnott is able to play with precision and speed, but always with a crying tone that adds an underlay of emotion to songs that, without him, might descend into empty aggression.
In terms of lyrics, I expected an album evoking a book by Nietzsche would be a bit more inspired, but “Will to Power” was instead pretty by the numbers. The songs are mostly variants of resisting the crowd and standing strong and proud in your iconoclastic rebellion. Yeah, it appeals, but the writer in me is always eager for a more complex narrative or character study.
Also, the switch from style to style mid-song is a bit like a high-performance engine – driven just right it is pure joy, but you can also blow the head gasket off if you time the shift wrong. “Will to Power” rides the edge well, but every now and then it loses its organic, natural glide through the progressions. Not often, but enough to knock it down a star, if only just.
No serious complaints though. I spent three fine days of actual driving in my commute to this album with very few complaints to show for it. It isn’t the album I would “gateway” someone into Arch Enemy, but it’s a worthy entry in their body of work.
Best tracks: Blood in the Water, The World Is Yours, Reason to Believe, A Fight I Must Win
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