Metalist.co.il recently caught up with ARCH ENEMY vocalist Angela Gossow. The following is an excerpt from the interview:

Metalist: Angela, from what I've read from your studio updates, you were the one who came up with the concept for Rise Of The Tyrant, both as an album and title-track. Can you shed more light on the name and what's behind it?

Angela: "Yeah, well those were the last lyrics I wrote, for the song 'Rise Of The Tyrant', and Michael [Amott, Guitar - Christopher's brother] just thought it was a very strong title. We were thinking about a title for a long time, and couldn't come up with something, because we like big and outstanding album titles, and we wanted the album title to give some ideas about the music and the material that's on the album. We had Wages Of Sin, Anthems Of Rebellion and Doomsday Machine and look at this title - Rise Of The Tyrant - it works on a lot of levels, it works musically and also lyrically and it sounds very big, like "that's an album that rises up, big and powerful", and that's why we decided to use it as the title track, and title the album with it. You know, it's always been themes of Arch Enemy, talking about Rebellion, Tyranny, Megalomaniacs and the abuse of power, War - we got a lot of war lyrics as well - It feels like a concept, so that's why we decided at the end to use it as album title. But [originally], I wrote it as a song title only."

Metalist: How does this song ['Rise Of The Tyrant'] connect to the rest of the tracks in the album, concept-wise?

Angela: "Well, we have put a soundtrack part at the beginning, with Caligula speaking to the Senate and declares himself as God, and there's plenty of song on the new album like 'Blood On Your Hands', 'In This Shallow Grave' and 'The Day You Died' - Those are songs about war, and war is the ultimate abuse of power, and it kind of plays it in. You've got Caligula and you've got modern Megalomaniacs as well, up to this day - it's very old human history. But then we got songs like 'Revolution Begins' which is the opposite, so it sits in with the context that Arch Enemy was always thinking about 'Enemy's Threat', it goes on most songs lyrics, this underline feeling of power abuse."

Metalist: You also took more direct approach with your voice this time than with what you did on Doomsday, using only a one-vocal-track. What made you change your perspective about doubling vocals?

Angela: "I've been playing around with a lot of effects, because it was very exciting getting into the studio. Pro-tools had a real strong variety and there are a lot of cool effects you can use for the voice, but ultimately I grew tired of this. That played well for me on the first three records of Arch Enemy because I got excited, and every time I went to the studio I was like 'Oh my god, all this new stuff... I can try this and I can try that' - but now I just want to do music that would be honest and with a direct approach. I played enough with effects on the last three albums and this time I just wanted to have it stripped down, and be me.

Also there are many people that say 'I only heard the effects, and that was crap' - and I just want to shut up those people, this time it's really me [Laughs]... there are no effects and playing around. So I think it will silence a lot of people who had their doubt in the last couple of years. That's a very nice approach on this record, everything is live. I've done it all, I tried every kind of effect on my voice, and now there are no effects at all so it's cool."

Go to this location for the complete interview.