Arch Enemy was the first band with harsh vocals I listened to voluntarily. The excellent riff work and strong melodic themes of ‘The Immortal’ made me think of them as a heavy metal band with that type of vocals rather than a melodic death metal band. ‘Deceivers’ is the first Arch Enemy album in a long time that I unequivocally like, however. While the band has a clearly defined style, they frequently crossed the line towards the stale and formulaic over the last two decades. ‘Deceivers’ remedies that by mixing up the song structures and dynamics. Slight, but very notable changes.

Not all recent Arch Enemy releases were quite as bland as ‘Khaos Legions’, but they got increasingly predictable. Especially the ‘Nemesis’ formula – vicious opening, anticlimactic chorus with trite lyrics – was repeated too much for my liking, while anyone could predict which type of song would be where in the tracklisting. While nobody would mistake ‘Deceivers’ for any other band, song structures in particular are less predictable than usual. The most melodic part of the songs isn’t always the chorus. In fact, the raging ‘Deceiver, Deceiver’ doesn’t even have an overtly melodic part, despite it being where the ‘Nemesis’ knockoff would usually be.

‘Handshake With Hell’ is quite a daring opener. It ostensibly is the uptempo, but not too fast kind of opener Arch Enemy usually goes for, but with Alissa White-Gluz putting her fantastic alto to good use in the pre-chorus and then again in the surprisingly calm middle section, it is enough of a twist to keep me interested. Another welcome improvement on ‘Deceivers’ is the return of actual thrashing riffs. ‘The Watcher’, the aforementioned ‘Deceiver, Deceiver’ and ‘Sunset Over The Empire’ have an amount of speedy momentum that the band’s post-‘Wages Of Sin’ albums were lacking, except for maybe parts of ‘War Eternal’.

One advantage of the approach on ‘Deceivers’ is that the variation makes the more typical Arch Enemy songs easier to get through. The mid-tempo hardrock-inspired ‘In The Eye Of The Storm’ might have made many Arch Enemy albums drag, but it’s actually a nice change of pace here. Likewise, ‘Poisoned Arrow’ would have been just another one of their tracks on any other album, but actually works quite well in this context. ‘House Of Mirrors’, with its melodic progressions reminiscent of Dark Tranquillity, is another excellent melodeath track, while I really like the subdued darkness in the atmosphere of closing track ‘Exiled From Earth’.

‘Deceivers’ isn’t perfect. Jeff Loomis is still severely underutilized. In terms of playing, I understand, with him being in Seattle and the rest of the band in Sweden. But for god’s sake, the man was part of arguably the best songwriting duo in modern metal, at least let him contribute more. Also, I think White-Gluz could add even more variation to her vocal approach without the results sounding too unlike the band’s other work. But as it stands, ‘Deceivers’ is easily my favorite Arch Enemy album since ‘Wages Of Sin’. The songwriting and production tropes that bored me senseless have not disappeared entirely, but experimenting with the way they are structured is a massive improvement.

Recommended tracks: ‘House Of Mirrors’, ‘Deceiver, Deceiver’, ‘The Watcher’, ‘Handshake With Hell’