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I haven't really liked an Arch Enemy album since Rise of the Tyrant, and that was a long fucking time ago. Unfortunate that the band got a better vocalist but can't write better songs than they used to. Not that this has ever been a very consistent band, with good albums often sandwiched between bad ones. All that is just to say I wasn't sure what I would hear on this disc.

This is sharp and polished, with the tight playing you would expect and a very pro production, but it's just not exciting. The songs sound like recycled versions of songs from past albums, and none of them have any kind of real identity or stand out much from each other. The extensive use of cleaner singing for the choruses gives this a sheen of accessibility, but it doesn't make these good songs, as they are strictly mediocre. Arch Enemy have produced a few high points in their career, but this isn't one of them.