Review by TheOneNeverSeen on February 6, 2023.

Although Arch Enemy is one of my favorite melodic death metal bands, I have to admit the inconsistency of their discography. In my opinion, all their works after "Anthems of Rebellion" are fine at best and faint at worst. However, "War Eternal" is a breath of fresh air for me, since, although not introducing anything totally new and using all the elements the band had previously employed in their music, it offers nice-sounding, epic and high-quality melodic death metal. In fact (this attitude is apparently very uncommon among the fans), I enjoy this album more or less as much as I enjoy "Wages of Sin" or "Burning Bridges", if not more.

Opened by a solid intro "Tempore Nihil Sanat", the album descends into a sequence of remarkable and epic songs. The spirit of Arch Enemy is undoubtedly explicit. Alissa's vocals are excellent and more beautiful (although less angry) than Angela's. Amott's riffs are brilliant, and I enjoy them way more than the ones of "Doomsday Machine" or "Rise of the Tyrant". The thing that one instantly notices about the album is its awesome production. Some will probably perceive it as "overly-polished", and, while I agree that it's a move towards mainstream and a step away from Arch Enemy's traditional "rawer" and "angrier" sound, I nonetheless appreciate this experiment, since it makes the record stand out from the rest of the band's discography and contributes to its mood.

The album has multiple remarkable moments, such as the atmospheric intro of "Avalanche", orchestra elements of "Time Is Black" or Alissa's intro scream of "Never Forgive, Never Forget". Even the instrumental tracks are awesome, particularly "Not Long for This World", the atmosphere of which is absolutely stunning. In that sense, "War Eternal" is better than most Arch Enemy albums, in which I love a couple of songs only. True, the album does contain a few mediocre Arch Enemy songs that you will most likely forget a few minutes after hearing them ("As the Pages Burn", "You Will Know My Name", "On and On"), but, considering this is the case for the vast majority of their works and the band's songwriting is practically unchanged since "Wages of Sin", I won't be very critical of them. The album's emotions vary from melancholy and mystery to anger and anxiety, which makes it more diverse and absorbing.

The lyrics, unfortunately, mostly fail to impress. There is nothing new about them and I don't think one could differentiate them from the lyrics of any other Arch Enemy album. Casual "I'm/We're so cool and independent" is mingled with casual "this imagery is so dark and epic". Sure, there are other melodic death metal bands that stick to a particular lyrics style/themes, such as Hypocrisy or Children of Bodom, but both of those, in my opinion, are capable of writing interesting lyrics for most of their albums, which, alas, is not the case for Arch Enemy. To conclude, the lyrics aren't terrible, but could've been better.

"War Eternal" is a great album in terms of nearly everything. Sure, it does not solve the problems the band had developed, nor does it differ significantly from their previous works, but it still offers fresh, catchy, not too uniform music that is not only great for newcomers to get into extreme vocals and death metal as a whole, but also for those who appreciate music with such mood, like myself.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Review by Death8699 on October 31, 2019.

Definitely better than Khaos Legions without a doubt. Arch Enemy steps up with fury on here. Alissa sounds like a replica of Angela though with moderate variety. The music and intensity are strong and the compositions are reflecting of older AE, sticking to the core of melodic death metal. Nick, their new guitarist replacing the amazing Christopher Amott, did a superb job here. I still favor Christopher, but his endeavors are different now that he's no longer with the band.

If this is to be the last AE, it would be a tragedy. I'm hoping with this newer lineup they still have some more albums to belt out. The music on here is a blend of the first 4 albums and the bonus track "Shadow On the Wall" is a good cover. The guitars are heavy, and the lyrics are brutal reflecting the songwriting from Michael and Nick. I'd say most of the guitars are in C, making them thick and chunky. There is a mixture too with keys as intros among outros with melodic guitars.

Here it seems like the ideas of the past have reiterated themselves, especially reminiscent of Burning Bridges especially on the outro song entitled "Not Long For This World." Very much like Burning Bridges outro track. The album intro is a lot like what you'd hear from something Cradle of Filth would do. Not saying that they're copying them, just with the keys/synthesizers are much like that of COF. Track 2 belts out some ferocious guitar and vocals not to mention tremendous blast beating that's only on this track.

The leads by Nick are quite technical and well composed and Michael's are like that of his traditional approach to his "feel" like talents. He is less technical than Nick in the lead department. It's good that the band decided to put out a couple of music videos before the album was released in the states. It gave a good feel for what was ahead to hear on here with no surprises. Their path once again isn't reinventing the genre, just doing a praise for it, never abandoning their roots. Alissa's energy is reflecting of Angela's. Deep throat to about the same degree.

I especially like the title track (which is a given) and "You Will Know My Name", of which they also did a video for. These were 2 tracks that glorified the album. The heavy guitars accompanying the intensity of the vocals were quite in unison. All of the tracks to me are good, bar chords, tremolo picking galore, hardcore shredding and music that is with a huge amount of feel thanks to all of the band member's efforts. I think that seeing those videos beforehand gave me hope that this would surpass their previous by a ton!

If your thing is melody mixed with heaviness and production quality that is superb without sacrificing talent in the overuse of technology, War Eternal is some great melodic death metal. The heavy guitar alongside the melodies really shine here, going back to the older days. I still feel no one can replace Christopher Amott, but Nick is quite good, implementing some impressive solos and songwriting ideas. Michael sure picked someone also to emulate Angela. Alissa's intensity is sure there like Angela's was. The band doesn't go mainstream here, they remain true!

Rating: 8.5 out of 10