UMUR
"Black Earth" is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Arch Enemy. The album was released through Wrong Again Records in December 1996. After leaving Carcass in 1993, guitarist Michael Amott founded hard rock/heavy metal act Spiritual Beggars in 1994, but to satisfy his interest in harder edged metal, he founded Arch Enemy in 1995 with his brother and guitarist Christoffer Amott, drummer Daniel Erlandsson and former Furbowl vocalist Johan Liiva. This is the four-piece that recorded Black Earth. Michael Amott handles the bass duties on this album.
The original album features 9 tracks while later re-releases feature either 2 or 3 bonus tracks. one of the bonus tracks is a cover of "Aces High" by Iron Maiden. It´s a good idea to include a couple of bonus tracks on the re-releases because the original album is only 32:46 minutes long.
The music on the album is melodic death metal. It´s a pretty raw and old school type of melodic death metal though, so if you´re only familiar with the band´s later releases, this is a bit different and quite a bit more brutal. Johan Liiva isn´t as such a great vocalist in terms of technical skill, but he´s got his own unique style, which makes up for it. A kind of semi-growling/shouting vocal delivery that suits the music well but ultimately gets a bit monotone. His performance here is decent but I´ve heard him deliver better vocal performances than this one.
The main strength and attraction of Arch Enemy have however always been the dual guitar attack of the Amott brothers and the same applies to "Black Earth". Their playing style on "Black Earth" isn´t nearly as melodic and memorable as on later albums though, but still colorfull and passionate. The material are not always that memorable and few tracks stand out as highlights and along with the raw and unpolished sound production, which definitely could have been better sounding too, this do have some effect on the listening experience. Overall "Black Earth" is a decent debut release but I think it´s obvious that Arch Enemy were still not completely mature as a band at this point. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.