Garage days revisited. For its eighth studio album, The Root of All Evil, Sweden's Arch Enemy decided to go back in time, re-recording songs from its first three albums - 1996's Black Earth, 1998's Stigmata and 1999's Burning Bridges.

"The concept of doing a record like this is something that had been on our minds for a few years, but we never really dealt with it because we were always forging ahead with writing new music and touring," says guitarist Michael Amott, who is joined in the melodic death metal band by younger brother/guitarist Christopher Amott, vocalist Angela Gossow, bassist Sharlee D'Angelo and drummer Daniel Erlandsson. "We found ourselves with a month off in the beginning of 2009. It was an easy record to make because the songs were already written and arranged 10 or more years ago. We just went in and cut the record really quickly and painlessly."

Amott says Arch Enemy's main reason for revisiting its earliest material was simply so it didn't fade away.

"Those older albums have become more and more unknown to our fan base, a little obscure I guess, and we thought there were some good songs there," says Amott, who also plays in the recently reformed extreme metal act Carcass. "Also, it's an opportunity for us to play some of these older songs live, as they were getting faded out of the setlist completely because the recognition factor wasn't there when we played them."

Another motive for Arch Enemy re-recording some of its more seasoned songs is because Gossow didn't come on board until 2001's Wages of Sin.

"We had a different singer on those albums (Johan Liiva) so a lot of people don't dig those albums for that reason," Amott says. "Plus, the originals will always be there, so it's not like we're trying to replace them or rewrite history. The originals are out there if you want them."

In the early 2000s, the idea of a woman fronting an extreme metal band was a fairly foreign concept (unless you consider Lita Ford extreme metal). Arch Enemy not only saw an increase in popularity after the addition of Gossow, it also made the band even more metal.

"She grew up on '90s death metal stuff and her favourite vocalists are guys like David Vincent (Morbid Angel) and Chuck Schuldiner (Death), and that's still her favourite music," Amott says. "The rest of us are these kind of musos, but she's just death metal to the bone. It's great to have somebody who's a bit musically close-minded in the band because she keeps us on edge. She'll come down when we're doing pre-production on new songs and go, 'This is totally lame' or 'Doesn't kick my ass.'

"It's good to have that perspective as well - otherwise we'd sound like Opeth, probably."

ARCH ENEMY
Jan. 31, 7 pm, Garrick Centre
w/ Exodus, Arsis, Mutiny Within