The Nexus

BraveWords Exclusive: AMARANTHE Vocalist JAKE E. Makes Departure Official – “I Can’t Stand On Stage Not Believing In What I’m Doing”

By Carl Begai

Since the October 2016 release of Amaranthe’s fourth album, Maximalism, vocalist and co-founder Jake E. has been conspicuous in his absence from the touring trail and in the press. The band’s triple vocalist attack remained intact for the band’s 2016 European tour, however, thanks to Smash Into Pieces singer Chris Adams, who had stepped in for Jake on previous tours when he was honouring other commitments. In November 2016, Jake issued a statement hinting that he had run out of steam, announcing that he was taking a break from the band for an unknown amount of time. In an exclusive interview with BraveWords, Jake makes his departure from Amaranthe official and final. Read on…

“Me and Olof (Mörck / guitars) started the band seven or eight years ago, and everything took off in a way we couldn’t have imagined,” Jake begins. “Amaranthe became a huge success and we toured the world, and we had a lot of fun doing that. The first two albums (self-titled debut and The Nexus) were exactly what I wanted the band to sound like; a mix between those Soilwork-like guitars and melodic Bon Jovi-type vocals combined with a female voice. Different elements combined, but the main thing in the music was the metal base. On the Massive Addictive album it started to change into something else that I didn’t really control, and you can hear the songs that I was more involved in working on are very metal. When we started working on the Maximalism album I found that it wasn’t the Amaranthe I had helped create at the start. It wasn’t my vision at all and I realized that I had to be true to myself. That was back in March 2016. I love to tour, I love the fans, but I felt that if I wasn’t true to myself.” Continue reading BraveWords Exclusive: AMARANTHE Vocalist JAKE E. Makes Departure Official – “I Can’t Stand On Stage Not Believing In What I’m Doing”

BraveWords Interview: AMARANTHE – What Would Freddie Say?

By Carl Begai

“Goddammit, Amaranthe…”

When Swedish pop-metallers Amaranthe dropped the first single from their new Maximalism album, “That Song”, the mastermind behind Billy’s Metal Mulisha on YouTube, Billy Kasper, was one of the first to weigh in. Like many Amaranthe fans, yours truly included, he was weaned on old school metal (Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth) and now boasts a wide spectrum of metallic taste (Stone Sour, In Flames, Suffocation, and on and on…), leaving plenty of room for Amaranthe’s presumably lighter fare. Kasper was put off by the track, and for all the fans that voiced their lust and support for “That Song” there seemed to be an equal number that echoed his reaction above. In much the same way The Agonist has been lambasted by some of their followers for the changes in the band’s sound on their new Five album, there is some resistance amongst the Amaranthe faithful in accepting their sonic update. Their trademark pop elements are more pronounced than ever, and the death metal growls that have been a not-so-subtle nuance have finally taken a solid third of Amaranthe’s three vocalist spotlight, making for all kinds of discussion as to what should and should not be allowed as part of the band’s aresenal. In the end – and it took repeated listens to figure this out – Maximalism is all about contrasts and Amaranthe’s evolution rather than phoning in a predictably successful formula-fed album.

“Exactly,” says guitarist Olof Mörck- “I think you got it perfectly. People are intrigued by the record because it’s obviously different from what we’ve done before. For us, when we started to write the album it was all about diversity because I still love The Nexus (2013) and the first album (2011), but they did have a very firm concept and we went with that conecpt 100%. And since we were so early into our career there wasn’t a huge need for variation. On the Massive Addictive record (2014) we felt that we maybe had to throw some things around a little bit. At the outset of Maximalism, I think we were trying to throw a lot of different things around because one of the main points with the first two albums is that they were in context when they were released. They were very fresh and people didn’t react overly enthusiastic about the music, just like yourself, but they realized we’re a real band that can play our music live. The thing is that if we kept on releasing albums that sounded similar we would have lost that freshness. We were trying to find new perspectives on what is actually fun with Maximalism so the music is new and fresh for us.” Continue reading BraveWords Interview: AMARANTHE – What Would Freddie Say?

AMARANTHE – Breaking Point: B-Sides 2011-2015

By Carl Begai

Breaking Point is one of those on-the-fly releases meant to keep Amaranthe’s name in lights while they continue touring in support of their remarkably successful third album, Massive Addictive. Most fans will love it, but there’s a group of die-hard completists bound to be slightly pissed for having spent extra money on unreleased B-sides that appear here. Six acoustic tracks and two full-on metal assaults are offered up, all recorded after the respective sessions for the band’s self-titled debut, The Nexus, and Massive Addictive. Hearing concert favourite ballads ‘Amaranthine’ and ‘Burn With Me’ done up acoustic is neither amazing nor disappointing; they’re well written songs played effectively as reduced to their most basic elements. The acoustic rendition of ‘True’ from Massive Addictive, on the other hand, is a startling stripped down version featuring voices and piano up front with the spotlight (unexpectedly) favouring vocalist Jake E. It’s actually preferable to the original version.

The two full metal songs on Breaking Point, the title track and ‘Splinter In My Soul’, originally surfaced as bonus tracks for the Japanese version of Amaranthe’s self-titled debut and their 2011 single ‘Rain’, therefore featuring original growler Andy Solveström in place of current rage vocalist Henrik Englund. Again, not a bad pair of songs, but it’s easy to understand why the tracks were never tagged as final album cuts, as they lack that elusive “something” to make them click. It would, however, be interesting to hear ‘Splinter In My Soul’ in a live setting with all its rampant Soilwork-ishness. Continue reading AMARANTHE – Breaking Point: B-Sides 2011-2015

BraveWords Interview: AMARANTHE – Pop Goes The Metal

By Carl Begai

Swedish pop metal export Amaranthe started life as a wildcard band. Polished and pretty, when they surfaced with their self-titled debut in 2011 their budding career had equal chances of becoming a rousing success or a laughable bellyflop. The three vocal attack (female, male, growls) was an effective attention-getter, but the layers of electronica keyboards and trance beats backing the modern-edged guitar/bass/drum attack of an otherwise self-respecting metal band left Amaranthe wide open to ridicule. The sextet did indeed earn their haters, but the international metal scene proved once again to be an open-minded collective. By the time the band’s second album, The Nexus, was unleashed in 2013 they’d earned a solid fanbase and rounded up a new legion of followers during the world tour that followed. Amaranthe’s third album, Massive Addictive, is their all important next step and is everything the title proclaims. Prior to the band’s recent North American tour supporting Within Temptation, vocalists Jake E. and Elize Ryd took time out to discuss what is being called Amaranthe’s strongest work to date.

Jake: “Between the first album and The Nexus I felt a lot of pressure. There was an anxiety to deliver as something as good as what we did with the debut, and doing the first album was very relaxed. There was an almost instant success with the first album, and we only had six months to write and record The Nexus so there was a huge pressure on my shoulders to do something just as good. I think maybe that’s why we took the easy way out a bit on The Nexus by writing songs that were similar to the ones on the debut. It could have been called the Amaranthe II album (laughs), but with a few more influences put into the music. I thought when we started writing Massive Addictive there would be more of the same pressure, but I have to be honest and say that I wasn’t worried.” Continue reading BraveWords Interview: AMARANTHE – Pop Goes The Metal

BW&BK Interview: AMARANTHE – Reach For The Sky

By Carl Begai

Amaranthe4 The day before this interview went down, Swedish/Danish outfit Amaranthe released their new album The Nexus, which promptly hit #1 on the US iTunes heavy metal charts, beating out the likes of Volbeat and Anthrax for top spot. In the days that followed the album did similar damage on rock, alternative and metal charts across Scandinavia, and landed on the Soundscan Heatseeker and Hard Music charts in the US. To top it off, Amaranthe were still on the road in Europe at press time on a co-headlining tour with Stratovarius playing to packed houses every night (including one memorable evening when Stratovarius had to cancel due to illness). Huge achievements for a band that has supposedly been under the radar since the release of their self-titled debut in 2011, and definitely a jump start towards bigger and better things.

Not to take away from Amaranthe’s current shine, but part of the reason for this current buzz is singer Elize Ryd, who has toured with Florida-based Kamelot as a backing vocalist for the last four years and hit the studio for their latest record, Silverthorn. The ongoing collaboration has been a blessing for an up-and-coming young band like Amaranthe trying to gain a foothold in the big leagues.

“I think working with Kamelot has had an effect,” Elize agrees, “because we have a lot of fans in South America and in North America, and I’ve been on tour with Kamelot in those territories. I was with them when they supported Nightwish on top of that, and Nightwish have a huge audience.”

As for how she became involved with Kamelot in the first place…

Elize: “From the beginning, when we started Amaranthe, we didn’t have a lot of shows so I had a lot of free time…”

Male clean vocalist Jake E. picks up the thread: “The whole story is like this: I used to be a pyro-technician and I toured with every band out there. We started this project called Amaranthe, and I was great friends with Kamelot so they asked me if we’d like to go on tour and if they could ‘borrow’ Elize. We actually did two tours with them, when I was also a back-up singer, so we were pulling double duty. Then we grew, of course, so Elize works with them when she has the time. This year, for example, it’s totally impossible…”

The depth of Elize’s involvement with Kamelot has increased over the last four years, to the point she’s become a recognizable part of the band’s roster. Amaranthe is her first priority, but going in to record The Nexus still ended up being a balancing act. Continue reading BW&BK Interview: AMARANTHE – Reach For The Sky