Hung up on Arch Enemy

>> Phone frustrations with a frostbitten freak

By JOHNSON CUMMINS

"Hello, hello!" Due to my interviewee's shitty cell phone, I am down on my knees screaming like a banshee into my speaker phone trying to talk to Arch Enemy's Michael Arnott.

"OK, try talking now," says the metalhead Swede.

"Hello, hello!" I scream until a vein as big as a telephone cord appears on my forehead.

"OK, I can hear you now," he responds. Phew! I mention to Arnott that our first introduction was beginning to sound like a death metal version of Lionel Ritchie's tearjerker "Hello," but instead of hearing Arnott agree with my witty kneeslapper I am once again greeted with just a voice hovering over a wall of static. "Uh, hello? Are you there?" Yeesh!

Well, on Arch Enemy's new record Burning Bridges, the band's innovative death sound manages to ring loud and clear by not joining the pack of extreme metalists and trying to emulate the sound of a blender. Featuring ex-members of Carcass, In Flames, Mercyful Fate and Dismember, Arch Enemy have firm roots in death and thrash metal but really shine when they choose to address more traditional molten metal songwriting. "To me its all about the song," explains Arnott in a brief interruption from static. "I think what sets us apart a bit is we put a great deal of thought into the song. I mean we could play as fast as we want, growl a lot and detune our guitars but I think that would just be a cop out to the fans as well as us."

Arch Enemy's homeland of Sweden has been quite the hotbed of activity in the past year with the rock and raunch of the Hellacopters and Backyard Babies, the adult pop of the Cardigans or the vibrant metal/hardcore scene that gave us Refused, Entombed and In Flames. So what's the secret behind this Swedish explosion that is attacking every musical genre right now? "I get asked that all the time and I think what it is...." Once again I am assaulted with the familiar wall of static until I hear, "Uh, hello? Are you still there?"

Aw, fuggit (click). :

With Nevermore at Foufounes Electriques on Friday, Jan. 21 at 8pm, $10