Arch Enemy's new single House Of Mirrors is a melodeath take on Iron Maiden-style epic metal

Scarcely weeks after releasing their first new single in four years, melodeath heroes Arch Enemy have unveiled a second standalone song in House Of Mirrors.

Mixed by Jacob Hansen (Volbeat, Katatonia, Epica), House Of Mirrors brings Arch Enemy's most epic songwriting tendencies to the fore, from the galloping riffs and soaring guitar leads offered up by Michael Amott and Jeff Loomis, to the crowd-baiting choruses delivered with characteristic snarls by vocalist Alissa White-Gluz that leave the track feeling like a melodeath take on Iron Maiden-style epic metal.

Watch the video below.

"The initial seed of House of Mirrors stems from this little intro guitar phrase I was playing around with for a while," guitarist Michael Amott explains. "From there it was an exciting journey to see the song develop into what we have today. My brother Chris happened to be around at one point and we jammed on the ideas, he added a few chords that were cool and I kept coming up with more parts. Later on we made a better sounding demo of it with Daniel [Erlandsson, drums] at the helm, which we sent to Alissa and she really came back with the perfect lyric and vocal arrangement for the song.”

“House of Mirrors is an introspective song about the dark twists and turns of the human psyche," White-Gluz adds. "Solitude can reveal some strange transformations when prolonged, like the phenomenon of 'the stranger in the mirror'; an optical illusion triggered by mirror-gazing for several minutes. After the past couple years of dystopian solitude, I think a lot of listeners will be able to relate and go deep with this song.”

No further details have been released as yet for a follow-up to 2017's Will To Power, but with two new songs in under three months, it seems Arch Enemy are looking to make a bold return to action in 2022.

Arch Enemy - House Of Mirrors — (Image credit: Century Media)

News editor for Metal Hammer, Rich has never met a feature he didn't fancy, which is just as well when it comes to covering everything rock, punk and metal for both print and online. He's as happy digging up new bands from around the world and covering scenes in countries like Morocco and Estonia as he is covering world-conquering acts like Sleep Token, Black Sabbath and Deftones.