Arch Enemy have become rather viable to the world of the more extreme sounds that metal has to offer these days, in both the fans and critics eyes. Combining thrash metal riffs with the deathly barking vocals, delivered by about a 110 pound girl I’d say, Arch Enemy write fast and furious music while keeping it melodic, at least in the music (take ‘Carry the Cross’ for example). Vocally there is barely any melody to Angela and her insect like approach to her sound, a constant ferociousness to her voice.

With "Doomsday", songs are still heavy but contain much more melody in the guitar playing and rhythms, just much easier to listen to than their last release “Anthems of Rebellion” and more so than “Wages of Sin”. You still get fast riffing but the changes and many guitar leads makes “Doomsday Machine” a more melodic listen you can say. ‘Out for Blood’ is one of the best arrangements the Amott brothers have written, including catchy and aggressive guitars, a touch of blast beats, and melodic leads to bring out the track. As far as the amount of blast beats there are very few. There is also more variety song for song with tracks featuring great grooves and varied pacing, take ‘Skeleton Dance’ and ‘Mechanic God Creation’. ‘Hybrids of Steel’ is an instrumental and from the opening notes reminds me of Scorpions (and I read somewhere the band was listening to the Scorps while on the road which explains a lot).

If anyone was interested in checking out the band this would be the one I’d recommend given the high amount of melody to the music, but the voice does take getting used to. “Doomsday Machine” is the next step to Arch Enemy’s creativity as they don’t allow themselves to write just another album trying to be extreme for extremes sake.