Now based in New York, Swedish technical death metal band Armageddon are re-releasing their classic album, Crossing The Rubicon, later this year .

Produced by Fredrik Nordström at Studio Fredman in Göteborg, Sweden, Armageddon’s debut album was originally released in May 1997. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, Crossing The Rubicon really generated waves when it came out, probably one of the most accomplished Swedish metal debut albums ever released.

Christopher Amott remembers: “The creation of the whole project was a collaboration between me and Michael (Christopher’ brother now playing in Arch Enemy). We are both sci-fi fans. The album is a concept album about the destruction of the planet, and the escape and subsequent adventures of the earth’s survivors. Apart from the obvious metal influences, we were also looking towards bands like YES and Rush for the conceptual progressive rock feel of the 70s - hence our decision to give each member a solo track. Michael and I were less than thrilled when the movie Armageddon came out a year after Armageddon’s debut. It was also a crap movie."

After the release of their latest album, Captivity And Devourment, released in 2015, Armageddon played their first show outside the US at the prestigious Loudpark festival in Tokyo last year: “Having played the Loud Park Festival numerous times with Arch Enemy, it was great to be on stage with Armageddon and to present my new band to the Japanese audience. It was a magical moment for all of us - we’d worked hard, with the Captivity And Devourment album, to come to this point. Playing in Japan is always a great experience. The stage crew is always of the highest quality, and everything is well organized. The fans are very kind and receptive to the music. They’re genuine music fans, as I’m sure you’ve heard. This case was no exception. It was amazing to hear the melodies that I wrote in my bedroom being chanted by thousands of people.”

Christopher adds he was very thrilled to play Japan with his buddies in Arch Enemy’s Black Earth album era with the Black Earth project earlier this year as well: “I hadn’t played with Johan (J. Liiva first Arch Enemy vocalist) since 1999, so that was great - to be back on stage with him. His voice sounded better than ever. It was special to bring back the old sound of Arch Enemy once again. I love the old Arch Enemy style, with its 70s rock influence and rawer, old-school death metal touch. The three first albums with Arch Enemy were extremely successful in Japan, and we were expecting an older audience. But the crowd was very mixed, with a lot of younger Arch Enemy fans. It was definitely a unique experience: different from what Arch Enemy evolved into, and different from Armageddon. Also, it’s been a long, long time since I’ve been in a band where everyone speaks Swedish, so it was a pretty hilarious atmosphere. Between the shared language and the 20-plus years of common references, we were joking around 90% of the time, and nobody else could understand us.”

More news on Crossing The Rubicon - Revisited coming soon.

Armageddon lineup 2016:

Antony Hämäläinen - Lead vocals
Christopher Amott - Guitars and clean vocals
Joey Concepcion - Guitars
Andrew Pevny - Bass
Márton Veress - Drums

(Photo - Armageddon Facebook)