SonicCathedral.com recently caught up with ARCH ENEMY vocalist Angela Gossow. The following is an excerpt from the interview:

Q: Rise Of The Tyrant is the fourth album that you have done with Arch Enemy. I noticed on this album you changed your vocal style just a little bit by taking out some of the harmonies used on Doomsday Machine. What was your thought process when you went in to record this album?

Angela: "Well, our idea for the recording was to kind of make the finished product have more of a live sound. That was just only one vocal take really because you can’t sing in different pitches live at the same time (laughs). So that’s how we approached the whole record really. Our previous releases have been very polished efforts and we felt that we were becoming complacent and needed a few changes. We liked the opportunity to challenge ourselves again so we’re just going to go back to a bit of a more organic recording, back to our roots. That’s how I approached my vocals as well. A very honest and straight up track was what we wanted with our final product, and we think we accomplished that goal."

Q: When you started (with) Arch Enemy did you expect to turn into an icon for female extreme vocals?

Angela: "When I got into my first metal band it was back in 1991, I didn’t even think that there was an option to be exposed to so many people. Our sound followers were more of an underground metal movement. There was no internet to use to help your bands exposure like today, no Myspace or even any web presence at all. Something we couldn't grasp in todays market. That type of promotion only recently happened in the last 5 to 10 years. So there was little to no exposure for us and therefore we were much more underground. We were only known in the local scene but we kept grinding it out as musicians and we just continued to write and perform music we liked. We just wanted to get our material out there. I wasn’t planning on the success we enjoy today nor the hard work or dedication it has taken to achieve this. I am a very grounded, German, Northern European person who had a normal, proper job. When I joined Arch Enemy we didn’t know how it was going to go because there was no other success story with a female extreme singer, we were in fact breaking the mold of what a female vocals band should sound like. There were some other underground bands out there but they never made it big. So we didn’t think we had much of a chance. We were just hoping that the existing Arch Enemy fans would accept me performing in a traditionally male vocals position within the band. We didn’t think it would get bigger because of the band choosing me as the vocalist. Then the style took off and kickstarted a whole new genre and style in extreme metal. I think In a way we helped kind of kick down a door for a lot of women who were just waiting in the shadows. Lots of bands who thought 'I know this chick, she sings really well, but you can’t do this, this is a dudes world isn’t it.' I think that was the moment when the whole concept of a brutal female vocalist became a reality. Everyone was like 'fucking hell, that fucking rocks' and 'that is a girl vocalist, holy crap...' People just finally accepted it. The time was right for a change and I was just was able to do my part and live my dream. So I guess yeah, it was the right time and the right band for me and I consider myself very, very lucky and proud of what I have accomplished."

Go to this location for the complete interview.