Live-Metal.Net - Concert Reports - Arch Enemy

ARCH ENEMY, DEVILDRIVER, SKELETONWITCH, CHTHONIC

September 8, 2011
Rams Head Live
Baltimore, Md.

By Jeff Maki

"We went to go see an Arch Enemy show and ended up watching Hinder."
Yeah, I know what you're thinking.

Going into this first date on Arch Enemy’s North American Khaos tour, Sept. 8 at Rams Head Live in Baltimore, Md., we knew another show (the annual Countdown to Kickoff at Power Plant Live!) was going to be happening the same night. What we forgot to realize is it was happening literally right outside the door to our venue. In any case, not only did we see Arch Enemy, DevilDriver, Skeletonwitch and Chthonic, but along with another 1,000 or so fans, we caught live performances by Pop Evil, Hinder and Chevelle.

I’m exaggerating some, as we didn’t spend too much time outside, but we couldn’t help ourselves. There were about 1,000 people outside for this event, with a large jumbotron broadcasting the NFL’s opening game, and a damn good one at that, with the New Orleans Saints against the defending Super Bowl champions, the Green Bay Packers. Even in a steady rain, it was a brightly lit, festive atmosphere with beers flowing and college kids abound, celebrating the kickoff of the NFL season with some mainstream rock. Pop Evil even brought out the Baltimore Ravens cheerleaders onstage for their closer, the hit “Last Man Standing.” It was a stark contrast to the darker Rams Head Live that was filled with evil from the extreme metal lineup playing inside. But Arch Enemy is what we came here for and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let pretty girls, drinking and football get in the way of that, right? (I hope you can feel my sarcasm.)

Chthonic (pronounced “Thonic”) opened to a small crowd, and played a set of Taiwanese black metal, sometimes captivating, other times sounding like run-of-the-mill stuff so many other bands are doing. The vocalist shrieked in the style familiar within the subgenre, and he played the ehru (a two-stringed, bowed musical instrument, referred to as a “Chinese violin”) during instrumental passages. This seemed to be the band’s biggest draw. The band—which includes an attractive female bassist named Doris—wore military-style costumes tying in with its latest release, 2011’s Takasago Army.

Damn, those Skeletonwitch guys are some scary looking dudes. Their 2009 album, Breathing the Fire, was a solid black metal and old-school thrash outing, which I compared in my review to Amon Amarth and, oddly enough, Arch Enemy. These dudes look like they rode in on Harley Davidsons, with spiked arm bands, rugged beards and a throwback thrash look (think Three Inches of Blood). Their songs formed a relentless attack of speed, even if nothing was an obvious standout. They played a new song from their forthcoming album (Forever Abomination, Oct. 10, 2011) called “Reduced to the Failure of Prayer.”

I’ve always been a fan of Dez Fafara. I’m probably in the minority here, but I still say his former gig, Coal Chamber, was a damn good band. Early on in their career, I was excited about DevilDriver. Their first two albums, DevilDriver (2003) and The Fury of Our Maker’s Hand (2005), were stellar efforts that I played quite a bit. But I’ve kind of stopped following the band in recent years and don’t feel like the releases that have followed have lived up to or matched the intensity of those two.

Is Dez from another world? He looks like he was just teleported from Middle-Earth, and the fact that he’s now 45 years old isn’t helping matters. But he can still bring it, and DevilDriver’s set was intense to say the least. “Hold Back the Day” is one of my favorite songs Dez has ever released. “I Could Care Less” and “Clouds over California” were other standouts of their set.

DEVILDRIVER SET LIST: “End of the Line,” “Hold Back the Day,” “Dead to Rights,” “Clouds over California,” “I Could Care Less,” “Not All Who Wander Are Lost,” “Head on to Heartache (Let Them Rot),” “Pray for Villains,” “Hangman's Noose”

Meanwhile, outside at Countdown to Kickoff, Hinder’s Austin Winkler crooned the lyrics, “I really miss your hair in my face” (“Better than Me”).

Inside, Arch Enemy vocalist Angela Gassow said she wanted to see bones breaking, before ripping into the lyrics “Ravenous/I will be a god/Carnivorous Jesus/ I need your flesh!" (“Ravenous”).

Backed by the brotherly guitar tandem of Michael and Christopher Amott, Gassow—one of the more recognizable figures in extreme metal—took over the dark reigns of this show, leading Arch Enemy through a set of classics and the best material from their new album, Khaos Legions. The band, backed by a huge screen that showed images, video and large blocks of flashing lyrics, took the stage with great intensity, trumping the opening bands. Never a band to dress in T-shirts and blue jeans, they wore the same outfits from the inner photography of Khaos Legions. The sound wasn’t perfect, as Angela’s vocals were sometimes low in the mix, but the guitar sound had great clarity. You easily could make out every note the Amotts played during their memorable solos. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The Amotts rival any other guitar playing in metal. They remind me of the Mustaine-Friedman era of Megadeth.

I was standing stage in front of Michael and was able to watch him with an attentive eye. He’s got skills. You can hear it in his playing, you can see it in his actions, and you can hear his enthusiasm when he talks about the band; Arch Enemy is his baby. This is what the metal gods put him here on earth to do, and he understands that. And Arch Enemy gives it their all every time out.

“Yesterday is Dead and Gone” opened the show with high energy, and the crowd—probably more than half capacity—was amped. It wasn’t long before they broke into “Ravenous,” an early surprise in the set. This is still my favorite Arch Enemy song. “Bloodstained Cross” is one of the most melodic death metal songs this band has written and had one of the biggest responses of the night.

Angela is fairly stationary on stage, headbanging, flashing the devil horns and pumping her fist whenever she sees fit (which is practically the whole show), but during “Under Black Flags We March” there was a certain sex appeal seeing her marching back and forth across the stage military-style with the band’s logo flag harnessed to her shoulder. She later gave a quick speech about religion and not believing in a higher power, which appropriately led into the atheism-themed “No Gods, No Masters,” another one of the strongest tracks from the new album.

Whether the crowd was wearing down, or I was just tiring myself, the set seemed to wane a little with “Dead Bury Their Dead” and “I Am Legend/Out for Blood,” but this was the only low point of the show. It all ended with powerful notes from two of the band’s biggest “hits,” “We Will Rise” and “Nemesis.”

Michael Amott told me in an interview (Read here) a few weeks prior to the show that he thinks Arch Enemy has “the reputation as a strong live band” and it’s “something they pride themselves on.” He also said they were “kicking things up” for this tour in terms of production. I can’t argue with him much on any of these points going by the show this night. But I couldn’t help thinking Arch Enemy and their opening acts should have been the bands playing outside to more than 1,000 fans. Not Hinder, not Pop Evil or Chevelle. What better to get football fans pumped up than extreme metal? But I know that’s not going to happen anytime soon. For those of us who were inside Rams Head Live, Arch Enemy can continue to be our little secret for now. But on a worldwide scale, this band is one of the best extreme metal can offer.

ARCH ENEMY SET LIST: “Khaos Overture (intro),” “Yesterday is Dead and Gone,” “Enemy Within,” “Revolution Begins,”
“Ravenous,” “Bloodstained Cross,” “Dark Insanity,” (Chris Amott guitar solo) “Under Black Flags We March,” “Dead Eyes See No Future,” (Michael Amott guitar solo) “I Am Legend/Out For Blood,” “No Gods, No Masters,” “Dead Bury Their Dead” (encore) “Snow Bound,” “We Will Rise,” “Nemesis,” “Fields of Desolation (outro)”