On September 28th, 2009 Swedish Metal masters ARCH ENEMY will release their new studio album “The Root Of All Evil” in Europe. It contains a selection of completely re-recorded tracks from the band’s first three albums “Black Earth” (1996), “Stigm…

On September 28th, 2009 Swedish Metal masters ARCH ENEMY will release their new studio album “The Root Of All Evil” in Europe. It contains a selection of completely re-recorded tracks from the band’s first three albums “Black Earth” (1996), “Stigmata” (1998) and “Burning Bridges” (1999) reenergized and upgraded by the band’s definitive line-up!

Originally recorded with ever changing band members (i.e. former vocalist Johan Liiva, drummer Peter Wildoer, bass player Martin Bengtsson), “The Root Of All Evil” presents classic ARCH ENEMY tracks with the insane vocals of Angela Gossow, several completely new bass lines by Sharlee D’Angelo, the ever-present guitar wizardry of the Amott brothers as well as Daniel Erlandsson’s merciless punch. The entire project was approached with the idea of having the possibility to re-add these songs to the bands live set and follow up the release with some special touring activity.

Now, a first track of this stunning release has been launched at the band’s official MySpace page, check out “Beast Of Man” at http://www.myspace.com/archenemy!

Guitarist Michael Amott comments: “So the time has arrived for a first taste of ‘The Root Of All Evil’! The song ‘Beast Of Man’ was originally written as a last minute addition to the ‘Stigmata’ album back in 1998. Daniel (Erlandsson) had just returned to the ARCH ENEMY drum throne and I wrote this one and another song called ‘Diva Satanica’ in a day or two. Christopher (Amott) had the cool harmonized mid section part and that was that, we went into the studio and rehearsed, recorded and mixed them in a marathon 24 hour session. It was OK at the time, but I always thought the songs deserved a little more love and attention.
The 2009 version of this song is really heads and shoulders above the original in my opinion. The song was always cool, but the production on the original was quite poor, more like a demo really. I am very pleased that we did this ‘Root Of All Evil’ project and that we can give these songs a “new life”… Enjoy the ‘Beast Of Man’!”

The complete tracklisting for “The Root Of All Evil” is as follows:

1. The Root Of All Evil (Intro)
2. Beast Of Man
3. The Immortal
4. Diva Satanica
5. Demonic Science
6. Bury Me An Angel
7. Dead Inside
8. Dark Insanity
9. Pilgrim
10. Demoniality (Instrumental)
11. Transmigration Macabre
12. Silverwing
13. Bridge Of Destiny

The album was recorded at a few different locations in Sweden and produced by ARCH ENEMY with Daniel Erlandsson and Rickard Bengtsson handling the engineering to then be handed for mixing and mastering to Andy Sneap (Megadeth, Testament, Exodus), a producer of the band on later albums but never before involved with the first three original releases. In the light of ARCH ENEMY finding their ultimate line-up and a bigger worldwide recognition starting with 2002’s “Wages Of Sin” album, it has been a logical decision to update the earlier compositions and present them in the splendour of a 2009 shape.