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A New Spiral in Modern Metal

With their fifth full-length, Helix, Amaranthe refine a formula that has made the Scandinavian collective one of the most polarizing and undeniably efficient machines in contemporary metal. The album consolidates the group’s defining tri-vocal architecture, bridges high-gloss pop focus with precision-engineered riffs, and moves with the velocity of a dancefloor while landing with the weight of melodic death metal. It is a work built for big rooms and bright lights, yet it rarely loses sight of heaviness, groove, or hookcraft.

Helix also marks the studio album debut of Amaranthe’s clean male vocalist Nils Molin within the band’s primary lineup, joining Elize Ryd’s soaring leads and Henrik “GG6” Englund Wilhelmsson’s harsh vocals. The shift does not upend the core aesthetic so much as it sharpens it. The result is a record that feels meticulously calibrated: aggressive, technicolor, and relentlessly anthemic.

The Three-Voice Architecture

Amaranthe’s signature is the triangulation of three distinct voices, used like instruments in a tightly arranged ensemble. Ryd’s timbre carries the melodic spine, lifting choruses with crisp, top-line clarity. Molin threads through the midrange, often providing harmonized counter-melodies or anchoring verses with a steadier, more grounded tone. Englund’s growls puncture the gloss, cutting through the mix to drive momentum and provide contrast. Together, their parts function less as a trade-off and more as a composite lead, building tension and release across verses, pre-choruses, and refrains.

This arrangement strategy also underlines the band’s structural instincts. Hooks arrive early, then repeat with slight modulation or dynamic escalation. Bridges tend to pivot on a rhythmic or textural shift—clean to harsh, synthetic to organic, or vice versa—giving each track a sense of narrative motion even when tempos are high and transitions are razor-cut.

Texture, Rhythm, and the Chromed Finish

Helix finds Amaranthe doubling down on machine-groomed sonics without sacrificing punch. Guitars favor tight, staccato patterns and down-tuned chugs that slot in alongside sidechained synths and pressure-tight kick drums. The rhythm section plays with club-born precision, often using syncopated accents more common to electronic music than to traditional metal. It is not uncommon to hear low-end synthesizers shadowing the bass guitar, or arpeggiated lines tracing harmonies around the riffs with a glassy sheen.

The production aesthetic leans stainless and saturated: transients hit hard, vocals sit forward, and the high end sparkles without tipping into harshness. Orchestral pads, piano figures, and glitch-adjacent transitions appear in service of dynamics rather than ornament. Even the obligatory breakdowns feel composed rather than improvised, built on repeatable motifs that make sense onstage and on repeat listens.

Across the album’s arc, tempos alternate between sprinting high-BPM passages and mid-tempo stompers. That contrast keeps the set from blurring into a single pulse while maintaining the band’s “engineered for impact” identity. The through-line remains clear: density of hooks married to percussive, modern riffing.

Lyrical Currents and Thematic Focus

The imagery of Helix leans into ideas of reinvention, resilience, and forward motion, fitting the album’s title and its connotations of rotation and evolution. Lines pivot on ignition, cycles, and turning points, casting personal resolve in aerodynamic shapes. While the language is unabashedly accessible—built for the immediacy of a chorus—it rarely tips into sentimentality. Instead, it lands as a kind of high-energy futurism, where defiance and uplift sit side by side.

That interplay of light and shadow is mirrored by the vocals themselves: clean lines convey optimism and human warmth, while harsh vocals pull the songs back toward grit and urgency. The push-pull keeps the gloss from becoming saccharine and lends the most radio-ready moments a core of steel.

From Studio to Stage

If Helix feels engineered for scale, the subsequent touring cycle confirms it. The band put the record to work in Scandinavia through late 2019 before moving into large European arenas in early 2020 as part of a triple-bill built for maximal impact. Onstage, the new material sits comfortably beside earlier fan favorites, bolstered by backing tracks that reinforce the synth architecture without muffling the human players. The tri-vocal interplay, so central on record, becomes an obvious focal point live, with leads and harmonies snapping into place against tightly cued lighting and video.

Visual Language of the Helix Era

Amaranthe’s audiovisual identity remains as meticulously assembled as their music. Videos from the Helix cycle lean into clean, high-contrast imagery and kinetic editing that mirror the songs’ architecture. Industrial spaces, neon-tinged palettes, and precision framing help translate the band’s “future-forward” character into visual shorthand.

• Direction and production: Patric Ullaeus
• Concept and makeup: Tara Linn
• VFX and additional editing: Tobbe Olsson
• Gaffer: Henke Hjälm

The emphasis on sharp lines, movement, and chrome-lit atmospheres underscores how the band thinks about total presentation. The songs are built with an eye toward translation: from stereo to stage to screen, each medium reinforcing the others.

Touring Highlights, 2019–2020

Following the release cycle, Amaranthe announced regional headliners and an arena run supporting two of metal’s most reliable live draws. Selected dates from that period are below.

2019 Helix Scandinavia Tour

• Nov 20 — Teatria, Oulu (FI)
• Nov 21 — Rytmikorjaamo, Seinäjoki (FI)
• Nov 22 — Messukeskus, Turku (FI)
• Nov 23 — Hartwall Arena, Helsinki (FI) with Sabaton and Apocalyptica
• Nov 26 — USF Verftet, Bergen (NO)
• Nov 27 — Folken, Stavanger (NO)
• Nov 29 — Liljan, Borlänge (SE)
• Nov 30 — DreamHack, Jönköping (SE) with Halestorm and New Years Day

2020 The Great Tour with Sabaton and Apocalyptica

• Jan 17 — Hallenstadion, Zurich (CH)
• Jan 18 — Schleyerhalle, Stuttgart (DE)
• Jan 19 — Olympiahalle, Munich (DE)
• Jan 21 — Gasometer, Vienna (AT)
• Jan 22 — Arena, Budapest (HU)
• Jan 24 — Torwar, Warsaw (PL)
• Jan 25 — Max Schmeling Halle, Berlin (DE)
• Jan 26 — O2 Arena, Prague (CZ)
• Jan 28 — Alcatraz, Milan (IT)
• Jan 31 — Festhalle, Frankfurt (DE)
• Feb 01 — König Pilsener Arena, Oberhausen (DE)
• Feb 02 — Lotto Arena, Antwerp (BE)
• Feb 04 — Palau Sant Jordi, Barcelona (ES)
• Feb 05 — Vistalegre, Madrid (ES)
• Feb 07 — Zénith, Paris (FR)
• Feb 08 — Wembley Arena, London (UK)
• Feb 09 — AFAS Live, Amsterdam (NL)
• Feb 11 — Sporthalle, Hamburg (DE)
• Feb 12 — Forum Black Box, Copenhagen (DK)
• Feb 14 — Scandinavium, Gothenburg (SE)
• Feb 15 — Hovet, Stockholm (SE)
• Feb 16 — Spektrum, Oslo (NO)

Why Helix Resonates

Helix does not attempt to convert skeptics of Amaranthe’s pop-metal alloy so much as it perfects the blend they have been refining since their debut. It is sleek, urgent, and unapologetically hook-driven, yet it retains enough abrasion and structural surprise to satisfy listeners who value impact over ornament. In its tri-vocal architecture, dance-aware rhythmic design, and vividly drawn choruses, the album reads like a statement of intent: modern metal as a precision sport, engineered for catharsis.

© 2019 Universal Music Oy