ARCH ENEMY: 'The Root Of All Evil' Limited Edition Details Revealed

Swedish/German extreme metallers ARCH ENEMY will release a new album, "The Root Of All Evil", on September 28 in Europe and October 6 in North America via Century Media Records. This special collection features re-recorded versions of songs from the band's first three LPs — "Black Earth" (1996),"Stigmata" (1998) and "Burning Bridges" (1999). Acclaimed British producer Andy Sneap (MEGADETH, TESTAMENT, EXODUS) mixed and mastered the CD, which was recorded at a few different locations in Sweden and produced by ARCH ENEMY with Daniel Erlandsson and Rickard Bengtsson handling the engineering.

Now, the details for the album's limited-edition CD can be revealed: Apart from a very special "mediabook" packaging, it features three additional live bonus tracks, alternate artwork, an extended booklet and an exclusive patch as additional gimmick!

Here is the track listing for the limited-edition "mediabook" CD version:

01. The Root Of All Evil (intro)
02. Beast Of Man
03. The Immortal
04. Diva Satanica
05. Demonic Science
06. Bury Me An Angel
07. Dead Inside
08. Dark Insanity
09. Pilgrim
10. Demoniality (instrumental)
11. Transmigration Macabre
12. Silverwing
13. Bridge Of Destiny

Bonus tracks:

14. Bury Me An Angel (live)
15. The Immortal (live)
16. Bridge Of Destiny (live)

"The Root Of All Evil" will also be available as regular CD, digital download as well as in LP format (with the full album on CD as bonus).

The song "Beast Of Man" is available for streaming at this location.

Commented guitarist Michael Amott: "The song 'Beast Of Man' was originally written as a last-minute addition to the 'Stigmata' album back in 1998. Daniel (Erlandsson) had just returned to the ARCH ENEMY drum throne and I wrote this one and another song called 'Diva Satanica' in a day or two. Christopher (Amott) had the cool harmonized mid-section part and that was that, we went into the studio and rehearsed, recorded and mixed them in a marathon 24-hour session. It was OK at the time, but I always thought the songs deserved a little more love and attention.

"The 2009 version of this song is really heads and shoulders above the original, in my opinion. The song was always cool, but the production on the original was quite poor; more like a demo, really.

"I am very pleased that we did this 'The Root Of All Evil' project and that we can give these songs a 'new life.'"

Check out the cover artwork below (by Brazilian artist Gustavo Sazes).

Commented guitarist Michael Amott: "This one took some time to get done, despite the fact that the actual songs were already written a good few years ago! The album was recorded at a few different locations locally here in Sweden — produced by ARCH ENEMY, with Daniel Erlandsson (drums) handling a lot of the engineering. It was then sent to Andy Sneap in England for the mixing/mastering and I simply can't stop listening to this since I got the final mixes!"

Amott continued: "We basically headed down to our rehearsal studio, got reacquainted with the tunes, picked out our favorites and proceeded to give a breath of new life to those early songs, with the idea to have the possibility to re-add them to the live set and follow up with some touring activity!

"I'm loving hearing these songs with a fresh new sound and performance. Everyone in the band did a killer job on it — especially Angela's [Gossow] vocal performance is astoundingly intense and brutal and it was also cool to hear Sharlee [D'Angelo] lay down some great bass tracks on the early songs! The production and mix is crushing and heavy as hell — it really makes these old songs shine. It sounds like a brand new thing!"