SOILWORK – ‘Verkligheten’ (2019)

21 January 2019

SOILWORK maybe doesn’t get the same amount of fan praise as the three other most important Swedish melodeath bands – At the Gates, Dark Tranquillity, and In Flames. But while other members of that company spent two decades in hibernation, and others dedicated their time to set themselves further and further apart from the genre’s roots, SOILWORK methodically made their own way forward, releasing album after album every couple of years.

The 11th such release, ‘Verkligheten’, comes almost four years since the previous one (the longest gap between albums in the band’s history) and with lineup changes (the band has a new drummer, Bastian Thusgaard, but no bassist – which is why lead guitarist David Andersson recorded the bass parts for the album). But don’t expect radical changes.

The band offers more of what you know it does well – a sound rooted in extreme metal with blastbeats and screamed vocals, soaked in melancholic melodies, and embodied in dynamic songs that frantically shift between riffs and catchy choruses, brought to their full potential by Björn ‘Speed’ Strid’s majestic clean singing.

From the melancholic eponymous instrumental that opens the album, to the real, super-intense, opener ‘Arrival’ (which works like a false nine in football), through the potential new anthem ‘Full Moon Shoals’ (that chorus!), the deliberately heavy and apocalyptic ‘When the Universe Spoke’, and the crushing ‘Needels and Kin’ (featuring Amorphis’ Tomi Joutsen), to the slower tempo, restrained riffs, and dominant clean singing in ‘Stålfågel’ – this is a demonstration of all the tricks SOILWORK have learned through the years.

They have new ones too. Like slowing down and tidying the rhythms like an arena rock band in ‘The Nurturing Glance’ (imagine AC/DC grew up on Swedish melodeath).

If there’s a downside to ‘Verkligheten’, it is that most of the other tracks – without being by any means bad or something that would make you press ‘next’ – aren’t as memorable. But having 12 songs, at least half of whom will likely be among the best you hear all year… this is a far cry from bad. Makes you wonder whether SOILWORK doesn’t deserve a more central place in the company I mentioned at the start.

Source: RadioTangra.com

Previous news:

TANGRA INTERVIEW - MIXTAPE 5 club - YOKO PASPALANOVA

Next news:

KIDS up to 10 YO with a free addmission to the AMORPHIS and SOILWORK show