Crossing the Rubicon

Crossing the Rubicon is the debut, released in 1997. The reason this record exists is Japan. Arch Enemy's Black Earth came out there in 1996 and got played on MTV, and the band were invited over to play in 1997 — and it was while they were there that guitarist Christopher Amott secured a deal for his side project. Armageddon is, in that sense, a band born in Japan. The first three albums were released there and nowhere else. Put together in Halmstad, Sweden, the line-up was Jonas Nyrén of In Thy Dreams on vocals, Peter Wildoer of Darkane on drums and Martin Bengtsson on bass. The latter two went straight on to play on Arch Enemy's Stigmata the following year. Ten songs, 38 minutes, a science-fiction concept album, cut at the height of the new wave of Swedish death metal. Amott began the project as somewhere to write what he wanted to write, outside his brother Michael's band.