UMUR "Burning Bridges" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Swedish melodic death metal act Arch Enemy. The album was released through Century Media Records in May 1999. This is the last album by Arch Enemy to feature lead vocalist Johan Liiva, before he would leave to form Hearse.

The music on "Burning Bridges" is exceptionally melodic death metal taking equal amounts of inspiration from acts such as In Flames and "Heartwork (1993)"-era Carcass as it does to 70s hard rock acts like Thin Lizzy and Wishbone Ash. Add to that inspiration from acts such as Judas Priest and especially Iron Maiden and you´re just about there. The raw vocals (I struggle to call them growls) by Johan Liiva and some of the most raw riffing on the album lead my thoughts towards death metal, but most parts of the music would probably be better described as melodic heavy metal. This is THE album to take a listen to if you´re a heavy metal fan who would like to take a listen to an easily accesssible death metal album. "Burning Bridges" would make for a smooth transition if you´re not used to extreme metal.

The band are very well playing and especially the melodic guitar work by Michael- and Christopher Amott stand out as quite exceptional. There are both soaring melodic, fast shredding, hard rock/bluesy and neo-classical influenced solos/harmony work on the album. The neo-classical theme at the end of "Demonic Science" which in the last few seconds of the song suddenly serves as backing to a guitar line from "Still Got the Blues" by Gary Moore (I´m almost 100% sure that´s what it is), is a great example of the richness in detail when it comes to the guitar work on the album. One fantastic melodic theme or solo after another follows the next all the way through the album.

The sound production is excellent. Powerful and metallic but with an organic touch that again leads my thought towards 70s hard rock. All in all "Burning Bridges" is an incredibly strong album by Arch Enemy and to my ears it´s their greatest artistic achivement and the masterpiece of their discography. a 4.5 star (90%) rating is deserved.

Time Signature The immortal...

Genre: melodic death metal

Arch enemy is pretty much associated with their present vocalist, Angela Gossow, whose death vocals are rather spectacular. But there was a time before her with Johan Liiva on vocals. Now, the question is, were they as good back then? The answer is "yes", and whether you like the older albums really depends on whether you can live with Liiva's vocals or not.

I can. Thankfully.

"Burning Bridges" is a great piece of ecclectic modern metal, combining elements from death metal with elements from traditional 80s metal and NWOBHM, and it works really well. This genre is the future of metal. The opening track "The immortal" is slightly reminiscent of Slayer before it turns more melodic. "Dead Inside" is quite melodic and contains a couple of nods towards both "Rust in Peace" by Megadeth and Iron Maiden style melodic metal as does "Pilgrim", while "Silverwing" has certain power metal sensibilities to it, as does the Dio-esque "Seed of Hate". The only weak track on the album is the doomy "Burning Bridges", which doesn't quite do it for me.

I think this album will appeal to fans of Ammott-era Carcass, At The Gates, Killswitch Engage, In Flames, Shadows Fall and Ax7, and it should also sit well with both death metal fans and fans of traditional metal... if they can live with the yelled, semi-growled vocals.