Album Review: Arch Enemy - As The Stages Burn! (Live At Wacken 2016)

Having witnessed the metallic heavyweights at the same festival two years prior, this scribe can attest to Arch Enemy's melodic yet visceral anthems translating on an enormous scale like Germany's Wacken Open Air.

Their 2016 set ramps up the production several notches for this live album/Blu-ray/DVD. Now boosted by virtuoso guitarist Jeff Loomis and fronted by increasingly confident growler Alissa White-Gluz, taut renditions of War Eternal and Nemesis seem near effortless, but still commanding. As the accompanying press material emphasises, the quintet already has a plethora of live releases available. Here's a worthy addition to the canon, albeit one for die-hards only.