With lots of little ear candy intros and outros, plus three instrumentals, a Scorpions cover (‘The Zoo’) and the closing acoustic ‘Snow Bound’ amongst the sixteen inclusions, people might surmise Arch Enemy have gone soft. Think again, you can practically envision the wall of death slamming to first proper track (a mechanized tinged ‘Yesterday Is Dead And Gone’, which follows an appropriate ‘Khaos Overture’, destined to be the concert starter this time around). Vitriol drips from ‘Bloodstained Cross’, even though there’s plenty of tasty guitar within its pummeling pace. The barked, PETA approved ‘Cruelty Without Beauty’ deals with animal testing in the cosmetics industry. ‘No Gods, No Masters’ is about as close to a melodic death metal ballad as one could get, although the acoustic close to ‘Through The Eyes Of A Raven’ is a surprise. ‘Cult Of Chaos’ has a slow, subtle, almost grind tempo alternating with fore hyper activity, whereas ‘Thorn In My Flesh’ begins a three song arc that are basically traditional (Judas Priest?) tracks roughed up.

Two disc version also includes covers by Discharge (‘Warning’), Europe (‘Wings Of Tomorrow’), Kiss (‘The Oath’) and Dream Evil (‘The Book Of Heavy Metal’). What a menagerie! Death vox on tunes that never had any inkling of such to begin with. Interesting.