At the turn of the century, traditional heavy metal forged in the crucibles of Europe had been muscled out of the popular consciousness by an ostentatiously presented, teenaged television marketing campaign known to the world at large as nu-metal. Long haired metalheads hurled their steel cups of mead at speakers in frustration, wondering if the creative wells of their beloved genre had finally run dry, fingers crossed in a futile/paranoid gesture hoping bulldozers from MTV (sponsored by Monster Energy Drink) wouldn’t raze Wacken Open Air three to four years hence (Or have a band like say, Korn headline, which would more or less have had the same effect.)
But locked away in Gothenburg’s premier metal recording house Studio Fredman, the phoenix like Arch Enemy was preparing a new album with a new, Germanic recruit standing before the microphone. Oft-criticized vocalist Johan Liiva had departed. Angela Gossow entered. She turned how we had always thought about metal on its head.
