Live Review: Arch Enemy - Esch sur Alzette 2025

Rockhal, Esch sur Alzette, Luxembourg
3rd November 2025
Arch Enemy - “European Blood Dynasty Tour” - Special Guests: Amorphis, Eluveitie, Gatecreeper

Four bands, four Metal universes, one evening: when the doors of the Rockhal opened on Monday, visitors were treated to a musical journey ranging from Celtic melodies to Finnish melancholy and Swedish Death Metal precision. But the long-awaited evening quickly revealed a problem: anyone still stuck in rush hour traffic at 6 p.m. missed more than just the opening act.

The unusually early start at 6 p.m. was already a topic of conversation in the run-up to the event. Arizona Death Metal band GATECREEPER opened the evening in front of sparse crowds. Many visitors simply hadn’t managed to arrive so early - a timing problem that persisted throughout the evening and hardly did justice to the first band.


Eluveitie

ELUVEITIE have been spreading worldwide for more than 15 years. Starting with their debut album ‘Spirit’ (2006) to ‘Slania’ (2008) and their latest work ‘Ategnatos’ (2019), the Swiss have developed a ground-breaking recipe. Far away from any drunken clichés and silly battle hullabaloo, they have developed a style that shapes the best of Folk Metal and Melodic Death into an incomparable unity.



Music & Performance
At 6:50 p.m., ELUVEITIE took to the stage at Rockhal, which was still below capacity. Nevertheless, the Swiss Folk Metal band delivered an energetic set that quickly got the audience going. They kicked things off with a powerful rendition of ‘Ategnatos’, followed by ‘Deathwalker’ and ‘The Prodigal Ones’, which sounded noticeably more powerful live than on the album.



The interplay between Christian Glanzmann’s raw growls and Fabienne Erni’s clear vocals worked perfectly. Particularly impressive was ‘A Rose for Epona’, in which Fabienne dominated the stage and put the increasingly crowded hall into a reverent state. ‘The Call of the Mountains’ was surprisingly performed in French, which caused additional enthusiasm among the local audience.



By the time they played the classics ‘King’ and ‘Inis Mona’, the hall was noticeably fuller, and the atmosphere was at fever pitch. The Celtic melodies and bagpipe interludes may not be to everyone’s taste, but the band knows its craft and how to get the audience going.

Setlist
01. Ategnatos
02. Deathwalker
03. The Prodigal Ones
04. Exile of the Gods
05. A Rose for Epona
06. Premonition
07. Ambiramus
08. The Call of the Mountains
09. King
10. Inis Mona

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Amorphis

For more than 30 years, Finnish pioneers AMORPHIS have dug their very own niche here between heartfelt and aggressive, melancholic yet comforting music. With their latest studio album ‘Halo’, the combo once again underlines their ground-breaking status as one of the most original, culturally relevant, and best bands ever to come out of the land of a thousand lakes.



Music & Performance
At 8 p.m., AMORPHIS took to the stage and delivered the best set of the evening, both technically and atmospherically. The Finns were in top form and impressively demonstrated why they have been part of the international metal elite for over 30 years. The opener ‘Bones’ from the current album ‘Borderland’ immediately set the standard: precise riffs, well-thought-out dynamics and singer Tomi Joutsen, who effortlessly switched between brutal growls and melodic clean vocals.



The sound was excellently mixed - each instrument was clearly defined without losing any of the overall power. The lighting design also intelligently adapted to the musical dramaturgy without drifting into showmanship. ‘Silver Bride’ provided a successful contrast, while newer songs such as ‘Wrong Direction’ and ‘The Moon’ worked surprisingly well. ‘The Moon’ benefited particularly from the atmospheric lighting and melancholic melodies, which were even more powerful live than on the album.



The absolute highlight was ‘Death of a King’ with its oriental-tinged melodies. Here, the hall fell silent for a moment, captivated by the hypnotic atmosphere. With ‘Black Winter Day’ from the 1990s, the band then took a trip down memory lane, which brought cheers from the older fans and showcased AMORPHIS’ stylistic range. ‘House of Sleep’ developed into a sing-along moment before ‘The Bee’ brought the set to a powerful close.

Setlist
01. Bones
02. Silver Bride
03. Wrong Direction
04. The Moon
05. Dancing Shadow
06. Death of a King
07. Black Winter Day
08. House of Sleep
09. The Bee

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Arch Enemy

ARCH ENEMY is a Swedish band from Halmstad, formed in 1995. The band has released twelve studio albums, three live albums, three video albums and four EPs. The band was originally fronted by Johan Liiva, who was replaced by German Angela Gossow as lead vocalist in 2000. Gossow left the band in March 2014 and was replaced by Canadian Alissa White-Gluz, while remaining as the group’s manager.



Music & Performance
ARCH ENEMY took to the stage as headliners at 9:20 p.m. and delivered exactly what was expected: technically flawless melodic death metal with impressive stage presence. The Swedes are a well-oiled machine, which was both the strength and weakness of their performance. The opening was intense: ‘Deceiver, Deceiver’ thundered through the hall with brutal force. Alissa White-Gluz’s growls were razor sharp and the guitar work of Michael Amott and Joey Concepcion was flawlessly aggressive.



‘Blood Dynasty’, ‘War Eternal’ and ‘My Apocalypse’ continued this intensity and showed the band in their element: uncompromising, precise, devastating. Then, however, the set noticeably flattened out. The middle phase, with ‘Illuminate the Path’, ‘Liars & Thieves’ and the somewhat tamer arrangements of songs like ‘Saturnine’, seemed like a concession to the various fan groups. While this was understandable to appeal to a broad audience, it cost the performance its drive. The set followed a calculated pattern and interaction with the audience was limited to the usual calls to sing along and raise their fists.



For the finale, however, ARCH ENEMY really turned up the heat: ‘No Gods, No Masters’ and ‘Avalanche’ brought back the original power before the encores rounded off the evening spectacularly. ‘Snow Bound’ led into ‘Nemesis’ – and this is where the visual highlight of the evening took place: dozens of large balloons were thrown into the crowd from behind, transforming the hall into a chaotic but joyful mess. This unexpected, playful moment broke up the band’s strict professionalism. The instrumental outro ‘Fields of Desolation’ brought the evening to an epic close.



A set with two faces: the beginning and the end are brutal and convincing, while the middle was a little too focused on compromise.

Setlist
01. Deceiver, Deceiver
02. Ravenous
03. Dream Stealer
04. Blood Dynasty
05. War Eternal
06. My Apocalypse
07. Illuminate the Path
08. Liars & Thieves
09. The Eagle Flies Alone
10. First Day in Hell
11. Saturnine
12. Sunset Over the Empire
13. No Gods, No Masters
14. Avalanche
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15. Snow Bound
16. Nemesis
17. Fields of Desolation (Instrumental outro only)

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It was an evening featuring three very different approaches to metal, dominated above all by the class of AMORPHIS. The early start proved to be an organisational problem, affecting GATECREEPER and ELUVEITIE to some extent. Technically and production-wise, everything was of a high standard: the sound, lighting and stage show were all professionally executed throughout.

All Pictures by Elena Arens