Melodic death metal band ARCH ENEMY’s guitarist MICHAEL AMOTT discusses the band’s Australian tour, new album Rise of the Tyrant and the impending Carcass reunion with SHAUN NANCARROW.

Rise of the Tyrant seems heavier and more energetic than anything you guys have done since at least Wages Of Sin in 2001. Do you get a sense of this, and is there any particular reason for it?

Yeah, I love the energy of the record. We managed to capture just what were shooting for with these songs. We did the album in a slightly different way compared to the previous ones, more time writing and doing pre-production and less time recording the actual album. That affected the results we got.

What led you to choose to cover a song by progressive metal legends Queensryche as a B-side for your Revolution Begins single, especially one from the criminally overlooked classic album Rage For Order in particular?

Rage For Order is a killer album and we always wanted to do a Queensryche song. We were talking about Surgical Strike but it ended being Walk In The Shadows, which was a cool choice in the end. I hear Queensryche guitarist Michael Wilton has heard our version of the song and enjoyed it, so that’s pretty awesome! We like to record cover songs that people wouldn’t expect us to do.

You guys seem to be becoming quite the fixture on the Australian touring circuit over the last couple of years. Do you look forward to coming all the way down here once more, and have you built up any amusing Australian touring stories as of yet?

We can’t wait! We just love the place, you know? Both the headline tour in 2005 and the Gigantour dates in 2006 were amazing experiences for the band. The fans are so killer, they’ve made us feel like Australia is a really important part of the world to tour.

The biggest news in the metal world recently has been the much-anticipated reunion of your old band, Carcass. How did final agreement for a reunion come about, and what sort of feelings does the thought of reuniting with your old band bring out in you?

Yes we will be reforming Carcass next summer for a handful of European festivals! It will be fun to drag the old corpse out again, it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a couple of years. Now the time is right and everyone doing this is excited and in the right frame of mind.

Any chance the Carcass reunion may make it to Australia?

I really have no idea at this point. We are taking things as they come with the whole Carcass thing. We’ll start with a handful of festivals in Europe summer of 2008 and take it from there. But if you guys make enough noise down there I am sure it could happen.

ARCH ENEMY play The Black Crusade with Machine Head, Trivium and more at the Riverstage on Saturday, November 3. RISE OF THE TYRANT is out now through Century Media/Shock.

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