Arch Enemy's Blood Dynasty

I’m not really into death metal. It’s the vocals. There’s too much screaming and growling. Although I listen to some bands that scream and growl (scrowl?), I generally prefer actual singing. I’m not against the scrowls, but I think they work better in conjunction with singing. For the most part, I find songs with just growl and screams to be fatiguing, plus I also have a really hard time understanding the lyrics.

With that said, over the past few months I’ve been seeing videos for Arch Enemy appearing on my YouTube feed. I’m not subscribed to their channel, but I do subscribe to Nuclear Blast Records, Frontiers Music and Napalm Records.

I had not heard of Arch Enemy before, but it’s a cool name, so I did listen to a few of these songs and I really liked the guitar work. I was less thrilled with the growl-singing, but it was not terrible. I was completely surprised that they have a female singer that does the growl-singing!

The song that really caught my ear was Blood Dynasty, which I added to my Spring 2025 playlist and had been listening to it quite a bit.

When the album of the same name dropped on March 28th, I added it to my Library in Apple Music and gave it a listen. I was surprised that I actually like it, for the most part.

The singing is all growling, with just a few places where the singer’s true (and wonderful) voice is heard. But the songs are good and with a few repeat listens really started to grow(l) on me.

According to Wikipedia, Arch Enemy is a melodic death metal band, so I suspect the melodic part is what is clicking with me. I think if they dropped the growling and went with straight singing they’d probably sound a lot like Unleash the Archers.

I recognize that Arch Enemy has been around a long time, but it’s new to me and might be unfamiliar to many of my readers. I do recommend you give Blood Dynasty a listen. Perhaps it will open up a new genre you want to explore!

I’d love to hear from Arch Enemy fans to know what they think of the band and the new album. Do you have any other songs to recommend from past albums that might be more melodic?