Amaranthe is at its best when it fires off self-empowering, life-affirming platitudes and hollow slogans at its audience. This becomes especially apparent in the more lyric-heavy songs. It doesn’t help matters that each of the singers, including the angelic Ryd, is cursed by an unflattering accent and inflection.

That she features up, front and center in the promo shots is only natural as she is Amaranthe’s the most identifiable and marketable asset. With two male singers vying for the listeners attention it takes but a cursory listen of “Massive Addictive” to realize that Elize Ryd is the true voice and face of the band. Mörck, the writer and producer behind Amaranthe and its music, should be applauded for being as versatile as he is in producing music this effective so far out of his comfort zone. “Massive Addictive” is a full-blown, electro-pop album from top to bottom. ‘True’, a piano semi-ballad, could be passed off as a modern day Within Temptation song, whereas ‘Over and Done’ is the prerequisite emotional, tearjerking ballad. ‘Massive Addictive’ sets the stage for the pair of ballads to follow. ‘Digital World’ has one of the catchiest choruses of all the album. ‘Trinity’ starts off as a Paradisio song with accompanying heavy guitars. ‘Drop Dead Cynical’, which could very well describe the band’s approach to its music, is driven by a beat nearly identical to that of the Marilyn Manson song ‘Beautiful People’. ‘Dynamite’ is all but a contemporary Rihanna, Ke$ha or Katy Perry song with incidental heavy guitars to give the pretense of a rock band. Consider Amaranthe the Scandinavian populist rock equivalent of Ellie Goulding. From the look of things “Massive Addictive” is more or less the band’s breakthrough album to a wider audience, and it would be foolish for Mörck to not capitalize fully on what can only be truthfully described as a techno-pop hybrid. Olof Mörck, who writes and produces all of the band’s music, apparently realized this, and downplays these elements in favor of tantalizing club beats, big vocal hooks and earworm choruses.

The non-pop aspect, which in actuality is more of the heavy rock persuasion to the more discerning listener, on “Massive Addictive” is negegible at best and incidental at worst. It has the clubby beats, the techno synthesizers, massive choruses and addictive sensual female vocals.Īmaranthe, who took their name from a plant, released a pair of little heard albums with “Amaranthe” (2011) and “The Nexus” (2013) prior. “Massive Addictive” is the ideal club music. Amaranthe combines the best traits of rock, Eurodance and 90s video game music into a danceable, rocking pop songs. The songs are catchy, memorable – and it is pristinely produced. Fronted by Elize Ryd and boasting a sound that combines the best of 90s Eurodance with throbbing rock riffs “Massive Addictive” is one of those pop albums that’s truly hard to stay away from. The most unlikely candidate for pop sentation of 2014 is Swedish-Danish band Amaranthe, who initially formed as Avalanche in 2008.

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