Arch Enemy Announce New Album, War Eternal

Do you think that when Michael Amott and Daniel Erlandsson left Carcass, they were like, “PHEW! Dodged a bullet there!”? After all, the record that became Surgical Steel was going to arrive with impossibly high expectations, and plenty of people thought the band was making a grave error by even recording a new album in the first place. But a new Arch Enemy album would have a far lower bar over which to jump… right?

Wrong. I say this as a big Arch Enemy fan: now that Surgical Steel has been released and more or less universally hailed as a total win, Amott and Erlandsson need to prove that they made the right decision by leaving Carcass. And so Arch Enemy’s just-announced new album, War Eternal, suddenly needs to be basically the best album the band has have ever made. No pressure.

For his part, Amott is already talkin’ the talk. The guitarist says of War Eternal:

“Musically, this album is going a few places we haven’t visited before. As our fans have come expect, our albums have all had their own vibe and War Eternal will leave its own mark. Lyrically it’s a much more personal record, and I feel the songs have more dynamics and depth than ever before. The songs are loaded with strong and vicious metal, drenched in tons of melody and emotion. All the trademarks of Arch Enemy are present, just more in your face and turned up to 11.”

Century Media will release War Eternal in early June. I guess we’ll see then how it lives up to Surgical Steel.