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Venue

Filmstudion

Gothenburg, Sweden

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Amaranthe biography

Amaranthe are a metal band hailing from Gothenburg, Sweden who formed in 2008. Since their debut, they have released three studio albums and are known for being one of the most exciting European metal bands to come along in years.

Formed by lead singer Jake E and guitarist/keyboardist Olof Mörck in 2008, the project really started to become the band we know today when E and Mörck decided that E wouldn't be the only lead singer in the group. After an extensive auditioning process they recruited a further two lead singers to compliment E, Elize Ryd, who would handle the clean, operatic vocals and Andreas Solveström, who became their extreme metal vocalist. E himself would handle the hard rock style clean vocals and and after they found a rhythm section in the form of Johan Andreassen (bass) and Morten Løwe Sørensen (drums), they took the name Avalanche and began demoing what would later become their debut EP “Leave Everything Behind”. However, due to legal issues, the band were forced to change their name in early 2009 when they signed their first record deal with Spinefarm Records.

Switching to Amaranthe, the band released “Leave Everything Behind” in February of the same year, and began their first headline tour shortly afterwards. 2011 saw the release of their self-titled debut album and ever since then, their esoteric mix of metalcore and dance music has made them a cult band beloved all over the world, and also a huge crossover success in their native Sweden, with two gold records to their name in the form of their 2011 singles “Hunger”, and “Amaranthine”. They've also made some serious headway in the USA, with their 2014 album “Massive Addictive” topping the Billboard Heatseekers Chart in it's first week of release. The band have even managed to weather the departure of Solveström, who left the group in 2013 and was replaced by Henrik Englund soon afterwards. Clearly this is a band with too much momentum to be stopped now, and for that, they come highly recommended.

Live reviews

Amaranthe seems to be Sweden’s answer to both pop music and rock. Somehow this awesome band has managed to find a middle-ground for both genres in their melodic, beat heavy, power metal, and it’s a middle-ground totally works. Elize Ryd, the band’s lead singer, has described their style as melodical “dance-metal.” I don’t know if this totally sums up everything Amaranthe has been doing with their music since 2008, but I do know that you have to see them live to really appreciate what they’re all about. I was lucky enough to see them perform in their home country last month and the knockout energy of their performance just blew me away. This band loves – LOVES – their fans. You can just tell that they want every single person watching them to have the time of their lives. They opened their set with Future on Hold, which set the right tone for the rest of the gig, and they totally killed it. There wasn’t a single person who wasn’t jumping up and down, totally wrapped up in the music, by the end of that opener. With the start of each new song, the six of them seemed more and more insistent on raising their game. By the time we got to the encore and they hit us with Nexus (they saved the best for last) I was totally exhausted. Experiencing them live is something I’ll never forget, and can’t wait to do again next year after they release their new album Massive Addictive this October.

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