Burning Bridges

Burning Bridges is the close of the early trilogy, on which ARCH ENEMY bound weighty riffs, sharply running lead guitar and raw vocals. It is the last original album with Johan Liiva on vocals, and the maturity of the Amott brothers’ twin guitars is stamped throughout. However fierce the songs, the guitar melody has a clear outline, creating firm drama within the violence. On “The Immortal,” “Dead Inside,” “Silverwing” and “Angelclaw,” the drive of a hard rhythm section supports the whole while each song’s solo pushes the tension further. The dramatic development of the title track “Burning Bridges” and the edge of “Pilgrim” and “Demonic Science” are striking too. Balancing aggression with guitar lyricism at high density, it is one peak of early ARCH ENEMY and an important record that laid the firm foundation for the band’s great leap to come with Angela Gossow.