Review of the Album Anthems of Rebellion by the Melodic Death Metal Band Arch Enemy

Following the release of 2001’s Wages of Sin, Swedish melodic death metal band Arch Enemy began a new chapter in their career with then new vocalist Angela Gossow. In 2003, they released the album called “Anthems of Rebellion” which many people say is the band’s best album. I heard the album War Eternal and thought that that one is their best as of now but that may change if we analyze this album or if I just develop a fondness for one of their other albums. After a short instrumental called Tear Down the Walls, Silent Wars is the first full song on this album and the song describes what can happen in a world where hatred dominates. The middle of the song has a riff that reminds me of early 1990’s American death metal but what follows is music that no American death metal band can even duplicate. We Will Rise is a song about perfection because accepting anything less than the best result is considered to be not good enough.

Certainly in the case of Arch Enemy, we can make the case that they have gotten better with time. Is Anthems of Rebellion better than the album Burning Bridges? That is a tough thing to say because that album has so many good songs including the very catchy song Angelclaw. It is a really close call though. As for the vocals, Angela Gossow proves to me that she is a very solid death metal vocalist, easily beating people like Jeff Walker. The song called Dead Eyes See No Future has a beautiful Gothic influenced section similar to Lacuna Coil.

However, Anthems of Rebellion has the excellent song called Leader of the Rats. One thing I can say is that Arch Enemy has a solid six year window between 1999 and 2005 and I haven’t even heard their 2005 album Doomsday Machine yet. Instinct is a song about the feeling that the world as we know it is dying as we are confronted by pain that does not seem to leave us. One thing that isn’t dying is the strength of Swedish metal which has been strong since the 1990’s all the way into today in 2018.

Let us analyze the brilliant song called Leader of the Rats. The main riff is pretty good but the next riff is even better! Angela’s vocals are some of the best here! There are people in this world who like to spread lies and misinformation and they like to bring others down. Their minds are infested with whatever is not good. Analyzing some of the lyrics even further, I can see what we can make comparisons to. What is one example of a group of people that use cynicism? Who criticizes the lives of others and judges them? The answer that comes to my mind upon further analysis is… The US Congress. The US Congress has members that are quick to judge and jump to conclusions anytime a national tragedy occurs. This song is not only one of the best in Arch Enemy’s career but it is also a song that has excellent lyrics. Arch Enemy as a band is here to spread the message that the world is full of people that try to spread misinformation and lies.

The song called Marching on a Dead End Road is an acoustic dominated instrumental and somehow, I think that the band might have had progressive influences while writing this song. Heavy metal fans will recall the song Crystal Ann that was written back in 1989 or the song S.E.K. that was written in 1984. Acoustic instrumentals are nothing new in the genre of heavy metal. There is another instrumental song called Anthem and this one sounds like a slow, neoclassical influence song. The song called End of the Line is a song about how the news media has the ability to brainwash its citizens. When you sell your soul for a better life, the result can be nothing good.

Is the album Anthems of Rebellion the best album by Arch Enemy? In terms of the songs, they are VERY well written and certainly along with Wages of Sin and 2015’s War Eternal, this one is one of the finest melodic death metal albums out there, surpassing anything done by bands such as Norther or Children of Bodom. The very good song called Dehumanization is a song about how the human race has the potential to become corrupted enough so that they can do things to others that are not good. It is hard to say that Anthems of Rebellion isn’t the best album that the band recorded during Angela Gossow’s time.