Arch Enemy Release Video for Re-Recording of “Stolen Life,” Now Featuring Jeff Loomis

Although, generally speaking, I’m against bands re-recording their own material (your history is your history — stand by it proudly, good or bad!), I do believe that there is a worthy exception to this rule: when a band gets a new member shortly after the release of a new album and opt to re-record one song with said new member, mostly for the purposes of allowing fans to acclimate to the change.

One great example of this would be when Killswitch Engage released a version of “Fixation on the Darkness” with Howard Jones on vocals. The band was only just starting to get big, and they presumably didn’t want any potential fans arriving for their set at Ozzfest and wondering how Jesse Leach had gotten such a righteous sun tan  (humorously enough, this also had the opposite effect — some fans bought the album Alive or Just Breathing after seeing Jones with the band, and were left wondering how he’d turned into a caucasian).

Now we have another terrific example of this plan in action: a re-recording of Arch Enemy’s “Stolen Life,” from last year’s War Eternal, with contributions from newish guitarist Jeff Loomis!

Fans familiar with the original version of the track will note that Loomis hasn’t simply re-recorded previous guitar parts — he’s added new leads in places where before there were none. Such a move could potentially have made the song seem too busy, but, unsurprisingly, Loomis figured out a way to shred his ass while remaining an organic part of the song.

So here’s the original version of “Stolen Life,” which was originally recorded with guitarist Nick Cordle…

…and here’s the new, Loomis’d out version, which was originally debuted by Decibel:

The updated version of “Stolen Life” will be released digitally on May 18. War Eternal is out now on Century Media.