Massive Addictive

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 – Maximalism

By Carl Begai

The first draft of this review was a pissed-off kneejerk reaction to what I initially interpreted as pop metal guardians Amaranthe trying to suck the marrow out of the success they had with “Drop Dead Cynical” from their previous album, Massive Addictive. After weeks of listening to Maximalism, I decided the record is instead about contrasts, thus giving fans an even bigger pop experience than ever before, while getting a hell of a lot heavier and more innovative at the same time.

Things start off well enough with “Maximize” but as of the second track in, “Boomerang”, things get uncomfortable beginning with a chorus that screams of the Dead Or Alive über-classic “You Spin Me Round”. It’s followed by the Queen trademarked clap-clap-thump of “We Will Rock You” as the “backbone” for first single “That Song” (the album’s low low point), followed-up with the “Drop Dead Cynical” rip-off “21”. Three head-scratchers in a row aren’t made any easier to swallow when bookended by “On The Rocks”, a party anthem that’s only one Randall Amp away from being a Ke$ha tune even though Ryd is pretty entertaining.

In a bizarre twist mid-way through Maximalism, Amaranthe blast a hole through the ceiling with “Fury” featuring Henrik Englund leading the charge and spitting venom for miles; the man’s screams are melodic death metal gold. We’re going to assume Ryd’s tip of the hat to Rihanna’s “Umbrella” in the same song is a well-placed joke. “Faster” and “Break Down And Cry” in particular recall The Nexus album’s best heavy moments, and “Supersonic” comes off as Maximalism’s most impressive track (after “Fury”) with some whacked-out(standing) Queen-esque vocal arrangements on top of the band’s trademark up-tempo delivery. “Fireball”, much like “Maximize”, is a safe Amaranthe song that displeases only those who hate the band. The album closes with an Elize solo spot on “Endlessly”, which sounds like something Disney would gladly pay a cool billion to Celine Dion to record for one of their animated films. Continue reading AMARANTHE – Maximalism

BraveWords Interview: AMARANTHE – Addicted To That Rush, Baby!

By Carl Begai

Swedish pop metallers Amaranthe unleashed their third album, Massive Addictive, in October 2014 to critical acclaim, but nobody counted on them still being on the road a year later in support of the record. Not even the band themselves. Multiple headline tours through Europe and North America, as well as the obligatory shows in Japan, have kept Amaranthe’s budding career moving forward and they show no sign of slowing down. Almost a year to the day of Massive Addictive’s release, band and label teamed up to issue Breaking Point – B-sides 2011-2015, an interim compilation of hard-to-find acoustic versions of some of Amaranthe’s best-loved tunes and two full-on metal unreleased tracks; a package meant to tide the fans over until the band coughs up a new studio album. This interview took place in Toronto on what is presumably the final jaunt in support of Massive Addictive, and while Breaking Point was the basis for the chat with Olof Mörck (guitars) and Elize Ryd (vocals), the real focus turned out to be on how Amaranthe has come so far since their 2011 debut.

BraveWords: Is Breaking Point in fact meant to appease the fans while Amaranthe is on tour? It’s not like they’re bound to forget you considering how much you’ve been in people’s faces.

Olof: “We have all these acoustic versions, and we feel really strongly about them, so we had a talk with the label about putting out something different to represent the band. I think it shows a very different side to our musicality. A lot of people are into that sort of thing, but not many people knew these songs existed. Maybe some of them had heard ‘Amaranthine’ acoustic or ‘Hunger’ acoustic, so it was really nice to be able to put all of these songs together with the added bonus of two songs recorded for the first album.” Continue reading BraveWords Interview: AMARANTHE – Addicted To That Rush, Baby!

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

AMARANTHE Vocalist ELIZE RYD – Between The Lines

By Carl Begai

Swedish vocalist Elize Ryd rose to fame as the female singer for Amaranthe, fronting the band alongside Jake E. (clean vocals) and Henrik Englund (cookie monster growls). As the band has grown so have the number of requests for Elize to lend her talents to productions by other artists. She’s no stranger to being a session player – it’s how she ended up with the Amaranthe gig – having guested for Falconer, Dragonland, Renegade Five, Timo Tolkki’s Avalon, with her stint as a guest vocalist on tour with Kamelot through 2011 and 2012 and her appearance on their Silverthorn record (2012) being particularly noteworthy. Amaranthe remains Elize’s top priority and she’s currently focusing all her attention on supporting their new album, Massive Addictive, but it’s a fair bet there will be more guest spots on down the line.

“I’m openly willing to do it because I love to sing,” Elize says of taking on productions outside Amaranthe. “I get a lot of requests to do guest appearances because many other artists who need a singer seem to think my voice would fit their songs. As long as I think the music is good and I feel that I can connect to what they’re doing, it’s very hard for me to say no (laughs). Sometimes I do it as a job, sometimes I do it to help a friend. I’ve had to say no to quite a few projects because the new Amaranthe album is coming out and I don’t want to take any of the attention away from it.”

At press time Kamelot was in pre-production for their next studio album. There’s no word yet as to whether Elize will be asked to contribute as she did on Silverthorn, but there are plenty of fans expecting her to make a reappearance. Continue reading AMARANTHE Vocalist ELIZE RYD – Between The Lines

AMARANTHE – Massive Addictive: “Crushing Any Ridiculous Notions That Pop Metal Has No Balls”

By Carl Begai

Massive Addictive won’t do anything to improve Amaranthe’s relationship with their haters, but the diehard fans will fall in love with the band all over again. The vast majority of fence-sitters, meanwhile, will find themselves drawn in by what is, quite frankly, a surprisingly addictive listen that justifies the wonderfully arrogant album title. Still pop metal to the core, Amaranthe’s all-important third album kicks off by putting the fans in the comfort zone with ‘Dynamite’, a track echoing the band’s previous album, The Nexus. It’s the neck-wreck-bounce of the following track and first single ‘Drop Dead Cynical’ – imagine Marilyn Manson’s ‘The Beautiful People’ as a song on the Grease soundtrack – that sets the tone for Massive Addictive. The vocal melodies are infectious to a fault, the riffs are bold, all supported by steel hard backbone seemingly yanked from Hypocrisy frontman Peter Tägtgren’s command center for his industrial-rocked metal outfit Pain.

‘Drop Dead Cynical’, ‘Unreal’, ‘Trinity’, ‘Massive Addictive’ ‘Skyline’ and ‘Digital World’ are guaranteed to become fan favourites, charged with more adrenaline than some folks give Amaranthe credit for. There are two ballads to be had this time out – ‘True’ and ‘Over And Done’ – both of them loaded with radio potential and too smart for the suits making programming decisions. The album winds down with the heaviest song of Amaranthe’s career to date, ‘An Ordinary Abnormality’, featuring the sextet pulling out all the stops and crushing any ridiculous notions that pop metal has no balls. Continue reading AMARANTHE – Massive Addictive: “Crushing Any Ridiculous Notions That Pop Metal Has No Balls”