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I've been stalling on writing this review because once it's reviewed, it gets off the playlist to leave room for something else. After mostly ignoring the melodic death metal genre for many years (still mostly do, really), I quite liked Will to Power some five years ago. Deceivers pretty much leaves it in the dust (not that I'm taking anything away from its predecessor). This album packs a lot in its 45 minutes. You get speed, aggression, catchiness, heaviness, and a hell of a lot of melody. I'm sure this last one can be a turn-off for some people, but here Arch Enemy have put together one hell of a blend of all this stuff, and while several songs come off a little accessible, they're nonetheless pure unadulterated metal. So yeah, this stuff is going to be popular, but damn, there's so much air-instrument-worthy, headbangable material here that it's just bad faith to write it off because of it. Alissa's vocal work has gotten even better on this, whether it's the (majority) growls or the clean vocals, it's hard not to sing along to a lot of this stuff. It's rare that I come across an album that sounds kind of commercial yet blends all the aforementioned features so seamlessly (can't quite think of another one off the top of my head), but Arch Enemy have certainly achieved that with Deceivers. I found that it just gets better with every listen. Definitely one hard to kick off the playlist... I ordered the vinyl edition while writing this review...