ARCHANGEis a band out of Grenoble, France. Known for their Melodic heavy metal, the bands first album "Flashback" came out in 2017. Over the years the band has evolved musically to its varied influences. ARCHANGE  offered to the audience with "melodic and powerful rock played with passion." The new album "Empire" took two years for the band to complete in hopes to meet the fans expectations. The first song "Smile" Starts us off with a drum beat before joined with the guitars. A combination of metal riffs, and vocals the song flows nicely, and a really awesome chorus matched with a great solo. A catchy song that I thought wasn't bad. If you like QUEENSRYCHE you'll really like this!

The next song "Schizophrenic" has a nice, hard heavy tone, heavy palm muted riffs and solid power cords. Backed with matching vocals, and the breakdown going into the chorus it's a great twist of the old school rock, and new metal tones I thought is well wrote, and executed. Following the first song, it is a testament to the bands influences. I enjoyed listening to it. I'm going to skip the third song, and move on to "From the Dead". With a really cool groove riff, mixed in with industrial sounds, and really well performed lyrics in the first verse to match the groove. The breakdown before the chorus is great, and the second verse the pace picks with heavily palm muted crunch I felt was nicely done.

The title track "Empire" starts off heavy riff, but then going into the chorus softens in to a change not seen in any song on here before now. Fit the song perfectly! It's a sort of DISTURBED tone, just hard heavy chugs into a melodic chorus backed up by all the singer's. Pretty catchy, bang your head tune, and honestly a little bit of everything the band has done throughout in one song. A lot of bands have done the cover of "Crazy", but I think these guys nailed it. Owning this cover by doing it differently then what's been done in the past, but keeping it where you hear the song using heavy distortion, and the vocals were spot on with the tone. Great cover!

The next song "Under Treatment" is another good song with a jamming guitar riff introduction followed by the drums. The band is versatile with the heavy chugs backed with a melodic verses, and the range on the singer with the highs. Very enjoyable, and a continuation of the band's many talents. They really did a smart play with arrangement of this song. The final song  "Autopsy" is a outstanding ending to what has been a really good mix of extremely heavy cords, powerful vocals, the perfect finish. I think it has to be my favorite song on the album. The range of vocals from low to high, the instrumentals.

Overall, I liked this album, the songs were well wrote, arranged, and the production was great. They said it took them two years to finish this in hopes to meet the fans expectations, and I honestly think they nailed it. I would recommend this album even if you're not into this style metal, there's something in this album for everyone