Another year, another Arch Enemy album. The good news is that the Amott tag team continues to be a step or two ahead of the melodeath pack – how crucial this distance is can only be seen in how the album stacks up songwise.

And that's where the news isn't so good. Granted, the album starts off roaringly well with a couple of really strong, heavy tracks – 'Blood On Your Hands' and 'The Last Enemy'. Granted, too, that the neoclassical-laced guitar work every so often elevates the material to new levels, as on 'Revolution Begins', or the title track or the short but awesome instrumental, 'Intermezzo Liberté'. On the other hand, the 'Anthems Of Rebellion' album, with its simplified, catchy hits like 'We Will Rise' seems to have cast a long, desultory shadow over the Arch Enemy sound.

Perhaps aware that a lot of their old school fans have moved on, and anxious to hold on to the newcomers looking for more anthemic sub-Gothenburg tunage, Arch Enemy crank out far too many uninspired, predictable tracks like 'I Will Live Again', 'The Day You Died' or 'Night Falls Fast', which come across as rather shoddily assembled, with the relentlessly crushing vocals often sounding out of place in the context of the more lightweight hooks. The awesome lead chops alone cannot save an album of mostly lukewarm material.

Success has made Arch Enemy a failure. They're a well-oiled machine who'll probably make it onto all sorts of best of 2007 lists, and be name-checked by various industry stooges by default, just as with any new Foo Fighters or U2 album, irrespective of merit. Sustaining this sort of mass appeal – and who in their right mind would want to kill the goose that lays golden eggs – means stripping your sound down to a conservative, populist golden mean that will please a lot of people, and kinda bore a few. Place me firmly in that second category.

Year of release: 2007

Label: Century Media