Arch Enemy's Tyrants of Evil Tour:

Death til' thrash, or thrash til' death?

ARCH ENEMY
EXODUS
ARSIS
MUTINY WITHIN

January 20, 2010
Recher Theatre
Towson, MD

By JEFF MAKI

Sweden's Arch Enemy released The Root of All Evil in 2009, a collection of re-recorded songs from their first three albums that featured original vocalist Johan Liiva. With current vocalist Angela Gassow providing her raspy growl--which happens to dwarf many of her male counterparts--and an updated, modern sound, the album was one of the best metal releases of the year.

Now, in 2010, Arch Enemy takes the road in support of The Root of All Evil on the "Tyrants of Evil" tour, no doubt eager to play many of these songs that have been absent from their live set for years. Support on the tour comes from legendary Bay Area-thrashers Exodus, the thrash/ technical death band Arsis and upstarts Mutiny Within.

Could Exodus actually give Arch Enemy a run for their money? How would the turnout be given that the band is not really touring with new material? Well, the answers are revealed in the battle of Arch Enemy vs. Exodus in this report of the first show of the tour.

The Recher Theatre is a fairly small venue in downtown Towson, which is really a nice area. From my experience, the main problem has been the lack of great attendance for metal shows, mostly due to weeknight concerts (this particular show was on a Wednesday). However, it's a great place to be up close and personal with many well known metal bands. I can usually make my way around or near the front of the stage with little problem.

Mutiny Within is a new metal band signed to Roadrunner Records. They've been touring heavily even though their debut self-titled album has yet to be released (Feb. 23, 2010). This was actually my second time seeing them in three months, as they were also openers for Soulfly in October 2009. The difference wasn't exactly night and day, but somewhere close. Opening for Soulfly, they played early, in front of 25 lazy misfits at the most. I could tell they were just beginning to get their feet wet and had to be disappointed with the show.

Mutiny Within is one of these modern-day, hybridmetal bands; equal parts classic, progressive, power and death metal, with a very young vocalist, Chris Clancy (who kind of resembles the bad guy from The Crow with the long black hair) that screams, growls and carries his clean vocals in a classic/power metal vein. They seem kind of generic, a cookie-cutter-type thing with no real identity, yet they have a few decent songs, like "Awake," "Oblivion" and "Year of Affliction." Some similar bands might be Scar Symmetry or Cellador. They can be heavy and command the stage at times, but for the most part, there's lots of work to be done. Their reception was OK at best.

I was probably looking forward to seeing Arsis more so than Exodus. The Virginia Beach technical thrash and death metal band has sorted through more session and band members than I care to count, but vocalist/guitarist James Malone and drummer Mike Van Dyne have been the constants. Their 2008 album We Are the Nightmare was one of my favorites of the year, melding Heartwork-era Carcass with classic thrash. Their new album, 2010's Starve for the Devil, puts a greater emphasis on a classic Bay Area thrash element--they even have one thrasher destined to be a classic called "Forced to Rock."

Arsis reminded me very much of what it must have been like to see Megadeth live in the early '80s. Malone's stage presence is almost a carbon-copy of Dave Mustaine, right down to his guitar stance and snarled-lip vocal delivery. He even sounds like him live, more so than on record. And shit, can this dude shred on guitar! Even though the band was plagued by some early feedback and sound issues, the guitar attack and soloing were some of the most memorable, fast and intricate I've seen live in quite some time. Standouts from their liv set included "A Diamond for Disease" and "We Are the Nightmare. Arsis effectively began to wake up the growing crowd, probably now around 200 or more.

Arsis set list: Forced to Rock, Half Past Corpse O' Clock, A Diamond for Disease, We Are the Nightmare, The Promise of Never, The Face of My Innocence

The Bay Area thrashers Exodus may be most famous for being Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett's former band. They've been around since 1980! 1980? I was 4 years old! The band has had many incarnations, including three different vocalists, with only guitarist Gary Holt and drummer Tom Hunting remaining from the original lineup. Recent activity includes a new album slated for 2010 (Exhibit B: The Human Condition), which follows 2007's The Atrocity Exhibition ... Exhibit A. In 2008, they also re-recorded their classic debut album, Bonded by Blood. Their live DVD/CD, Shovel Headed Tour Machine: Live at Wacken and Other Assorted Atrocities (2010), is their most recent release.

Exodus was always an afterthought behind Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Testament and other original thrash bands. But they had their 15 minutes of fame back in the day, mostly due to their most popular thrasher, "The Toxic Waltz," and their now classic debut (1985). Now with the thrash metal revival, Exodus is sure to cash in, right?

Vocalist Rob Dukes is their third singer after Paul Baloff (who passed away in 2001) and Steve Souza, who had two different stints with the band. My first live impression was that he's from more of a hardcore background. He strutted out onstage like he was in Sworn Enemy or Agnostic Front wearing a New York Rangers hockey jersey, a short-tight haircut and heavy-set frame. I don't know about anyone else, but when I think about the singer of Exodus, I expect a dude with ripped up jeans, a black leather jacket and long, curly, almost permed hair. Also, Dukes must fuck all day and all fucking night with a bunch of other fuckers, because that's how he addresses the crowd. Example: "You fuckers ready?! I wanna fuckin' see all you crazy motherfuckers, fucking killing everything fucking thing in the fucking circle pit! Fucking come on!" I didn't realize anyone still talked like that. My other complaint was his blatant rip-off of Lamb of God's "wall of death," where the crowd is divided in half and charges into each other in the pit. He even referenced Braveheart the same as Lamb of God vocalist Randy Blythe has done. It was also strange to hear Dukes ask if there were "any old-schoolers out there," since he didn't even join the band until 2005.

All complaining aside, the band sounded as expected, laying out some classic retro-thrash metal to appease the crowd's appetite. Some fans engaged in synchronized headbanging, shoulder to shoulder, while others carried on a old-school circle pit for most of the set. Standouts included "A Lesson in Violence," "Piranha" and, of course, the set-closer, "The Toxic Waltz."

Exodus set list: Bonded by Blood, Iconoclasm, A Lesson in Violence, Children of a Worthless God, Piranha, Deathamphetamine, Blacklist, Strike of the Beast, The Toxic Waltz

Arch Enemy took the stage around 10:45 p.m., led by dynamic frontwoman Angela Gassow. She has great stage presence and is it just me or has she gotten even thinner and better looking? The dueling guitars of the Amott brothers (Michael and Christopher) are back after Christopher's absence from the band from 2005-07, and sounded great. Between Arsis and these guys, I'm almost inspired to put down my wireless Guitar Hero controller and go get a real axe.

	ANGELA GASSOW & CHRISTOPHER AMOTT

Angela's vocals have gotten progressively more extreme with every album. Personally, I prefer the more, raw and raspy style she used on her debut with the band, Wages of Sin. There are so many other bands that use guttural growling vocals that these really stood out. Plus, it embodies that whole classic era of Swedish melodic death metal, back when the scene was in its middle stages ready to be unleashed upon the rest of the metal world. Well, I'm happy to say that her vocals live were just that. They were buried behind the rest of the band at times, but for those who knew the songs, it couldn't have been much better. The band had its moments in the spotlight, of course, with the Amott brothers playing impressive solos and drummer Daniel Erlandsson moving his feet with the best of them for his own drum solo, backed by pre-recorded music.

As you can only imagine, the crowd was going berserk at this point. It seemed that many in attendance (including many younglings) had never seen Arch Enemy live before. I guess it's good they're touring the United States again, right? Angela had fairly normal stage banter; my favorite line of the evening was when she declared that she "wanted to maybe see some bones flying and blood splattering in the pit" before they ripped into their classic, "Ravenous." (It was even better hearing it in her accent.)

Surprisingly only two songs were performed from of The Root of All Evil--"The Immortal" and "Bury Me an Angel." Standouts were "My Apocalypse," "Ravenous" and "Silent Wars."

Arch Enemy set list: The Immortal, Revolution Begins, Ravenous, Taking Back My Soul, My Apocalypse, Silent Wars, (Drum Solo), I Will Live Again, Dead Eyes See No Future, Blood on Your Hands, Bury Me an Angel, (Guitar Solo), Dead Bury Their Dead, We Will Rise, Snow Bound, Nemesis, Fields of Desolation (outro)

And the winner is? Arch Enemy. Exodus came nowhere near to competing with Angela and the boys (not that this was any sort of real competition to begin with, but fuck it, it's fun). It just shows, while some veteran metal and rock bands are still relevant (see Megadeth, Motorhead, Slayer, Metallica, etc.) and able to put out continuous quality, others are still capitalizing on a small sampling of succes, and riding it out until the end. They somehow gotta eat, too, right? It also shows that modern extreme metal bands, while obviously influenced by the genre's original greats, are taking things to new levels. So much so that some of the artists that helped create what we're hearing today are slowly fading into obscurity.

Related links:
Live-Metal.net's 2009 Interview with Arch Enemy's Michael Amott
Album Review: Arch Enemy - The Root of All Evil
Album Review: Arch Enemy - Rise of the Tyrant
Album Review: Arsis - We Are the Nightmare

www.archenemy.net
www.exodusattack.com
www.myspace.com/arsis
www.myspace.com/mutinywithin