Defenders Of The Faith, le forum Metal

On May 25th in Europe and August 11th in North America, ARCH ENEMY's first Century Media releases, Stigmata and Burning Bridges, will be reissued with new layouts, additional slipcase packaging and multiple bonus tracks. Original Arch Enemy vocalist Johan Liiva, who currently fronts HEARSE, spoke exclusively to BraveWords.com about his involvement with these discs.

“I wrote some liner notes about my memories of these particular albums. But I didn’t have any input into the re-mastering or whatever. I haven’t actually seen, or even heard, the result. I’m waiting for Century Media to send it to me; I’m excited of course. When Michael (Amott, guitarist) asked me to write these liner notes, I was thinking to myself; what can I say? I don’t have anything to say. I felt kind of awkward. But when I started typing, it came easily, for both albums. These were good times, exciting times for me, special times. We were touring and recording. We were hungry and eager to get this monster called Arch Enemy rolling. It was nice to relive the old times a little bit again; it’s been a while.”

The deluxe edition of Stigmata, originally released in 1998, features seven bonus songs: three studio tracks and four live cuts. The live material initially appeared on Burning Japan Live 1999. “It was recorded in Tokyo. But only 10,000 copies were released – in Japan of course. It sold out pretty quickly. This is a way to let other people in other countries get a piece of the cake.”

The bonus studio tracks are the 57-second intro ‘Hydra’, ‘Diva Satanica’ and ‘Damnation’s Way’. “For Stigmata, the first song, ‘Beast Of Man’, sounds a bit different, especially the drumming, to the rest of the album. It was recorded when Daniel (Erlandsson, drummer) rejoined the band (Peter Wildoer plays on the rest of Stigmata). After Toy’s Factory, the Japanese label, listened to Stigmata, they wanted two more fast and aggressive songs. So we recorded ‘Beast Of Man’ and ‘Diva Satanica’. ‘Diva Satanica’ was the one that showed up on the Japanese release as a bonus, along with ‘Hydra’. ‘Damnation’s Way’ was recorded during the same session; it was also a bonus track.”