Sweden – Power Of Metal.dk

Sabaton – The Great War

Laura Sønderskov Hansen — Fri, 19 Jul 2019 07:04:55 +0000

Swedish SABATON will be releasing their new album The Great War today. While their genre IS power metal, they have kinda created their own thing – because Sabaton is not known for singing about dragons and fantasy feuds, instead drawing inspiration from historical conflicts and the world wars. The Great War is a concept album about World War I and different aspects of it. Those historical topics range from “Fields of Verdun”, which tells the tale of the longest-lasting battle of the war in Verdun, to “A Ghost in the Trenches” detailing trench warfare, which was heavily used in World War I, but also proved extremely fatal. Sabaton is also releasing a history version of this album, which features a short narration at the beginning of each track, setting the mood and story of the song. The historical cherry on top of the album is the final track, “In Flanders Fields”, which is a choir rendition of a famous poem from World War I.

Highlights for me include “The Attack of the Dead Men”, which has an incredibly catchy, epic-sounding chorus and a classic power metal guitar solo, sprinkled with some subtle electronic elements, which is always fun.

Joakim Brodén’s vocals are good as ever, especially on the upbeat hymns “82^nd All The Way” and “Devil Dogs”. Honestly, it’s hard to pick favorites on this album – I can’t say I dislike any of the songs, because all in all, The Great War sounds like classical Sabaton, so it’s easily digestible. Some may find that boring, but I don’t think so in this case. And if anything, I think Sabaton should be praised for maintaining their original sound and feeling after losing most of the original members (Brodén and bassist Pär Sundström being the only remaining original members).

The album is released today, so get ready to listen!

Entombed – Live Clandestine

Thomas Nielsen — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 19:11:43 +0000

What would be a more appropriate timing than getting some words jotted down on virtual paper about the new ENTOMBED release from Threeman Records than now? I’m waiting for my flight back to Denmark here at Arlanda Airport outside Stockholm after two days in the beautiful and right now sunny capital of Sweden. I’m wondering how grim and brutal music can come out of a place like this, but, hey, stranger things have happened.

The year was 1991, a truckload of amazing albums were released and the young me sucked in just about anything metal that he could get his hands on. The list of bands who released fantastic pieces of music that year included Bolt-Thrower, Cathedral, Atheist, Bathory, Death, Armored Saint, Fear of God, Gamma Ray, Dark Angel, Heathen, Infectious Grooves, Metal Church, Metallica, Morbid Angel, Overkill, Ozzy, Paradise Lost, Prong, Savatage, Sepultura, Suffocation, Type O, Voivod and last, but certainly not least, Entombed.

Entombed’s first outing, Left Hand Path, had offered a new take on death metal when it was unleashed in 1990. The characteristic buzzsaw guitar sound was born and would inspire numerous bands out there (Dismember being the most famous of these – since Entombed drummer played the guitars on their debut from 1991, Like An Ever-Flowing Stream, I suppose it wasn’t a pure coincidence that they struck the same chord). No wonder producer Tomas Skogsberg became the man of the day at the time – something special was definitely created.

The sophomore album, Clandestine, for me stands out as one of the best metal albums to come out of Sweden ever (which is no small feat when you talk about a country with bands like Candlemass, Bathory, In Flames, Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy and many, many more). The song ‘Stranger Aeons’ remains one of my all-time favourite songs.

The irony, you could say, is that this, their best album, is the one Entombed album LG Petrov didn’t contribute to. On the album, Carnage singer Johnny Dordevic is credited as the vocalist, but it was in fact drummer Nicke Andersson who did the vocal duties. And a great job he did. I always preferred his vocal style to LG’s, but don’t tell LG, because he’s also doing a fab job and he’s one of the coolest blokes in metal.

The recording that’ll come out on Nuclear Blast in three weeks’ time is a live recording from 2016 that was made as a celebration of the 25^th anniversary of the album. Why it comes so late, I don’t know. Things are apparently still a mess between Alex Hellid and Petrov who’ve been in a legal battle over the Entombed name for ages now. Which seems a bit ridiculous.

Petrov is recording and touring with Entombed A.D., whereas this live recording was made by Nicke, Alex, Uffe Cederlund, Nicke’s half-brother, Edvin Aftonfalck on the bass and his former Morbus Chron band mate Robert Andersson on vocals.

This is supposedly the first time the album has been played in full live, and it’s interesting to hear how it aged in the live setting. I’ve seen Entombed live a few times now, and I’ve always loved the energy of LG in particular, but impressed by their musical skills I’ve never been. The Clandestine songs I’ve heard live never quite had the same crunch and power live as they have on the studio recording and neither Hellid nor Cederlund are flawless players. This live album basically confirms this.

Additionally, the sound quality of the recording isn’t super clear from the outset, which to me is surprising. This was recorded in a theatre, and one should think with the best possible conditions for an amazing sound and mix. It isn’t.

Bottomline is that this recording is relevant for the nostalgics and the collectors among us, and not so much those who are looking for great live albums to expand their horizon. If you missed Clandestine for some odd reason, I’d advise you to order the original studio album from your nearest webstore as soon as possible because it’s still a blinding album.

In Flames – I, The Mask

Thomas Nielsen — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 23:24:18 +0000

There are two things that are true of a new In Flames album:

1. There is always something that unmistakably sounds like In Flames.
2. There is always something that pushes the boundaries for our conception of what In Flames should sound like.

This is also true of I, The Mask.

The first four songs are what I’d call good, standard In Flames songs. Modern, up-tempo and mid-tempo melo-death groovers as we know them and love them. It’s what the Swedes do best. Especially ‘I Am Above’ rings well in my ears with Anders Fridén’s “I am above” grunts, which are then followed by totally melodic pieces. I think the contrast is fantastic.

Speaking of contrast, the fifth tune, ‘Follow Me’, is a break away from the preceding tunes with its acoustic intro and bird song. The quiet build-up turns into a melodic yet heavy riff with double bass-drumming, only to be turned into another acoustic piece. This interchange between acoustic guitar and melodic heaviness characterises the song overall, and for me, this is a song that really has grown on me the past few days.

With the sixth song, ‘(This Is Our) House’, Anders Fridén and the rest of the Gothenburg crew are yet again pushing the boundaries with a song that is so utterly catchy. Not so many days ago, their countrymen from Soilwork did it with basically the entire Verkligheten album, now it’s In Flames’ turn… This is an awesome song, and the message behind it is that we’ve got to do something to change the world if we want to survive. Couldn’t agree more. Amazing song.

‘We Will Remember’ has a touch of British pop music from the 80s, I can’t put the finger on which band exactly. Duran Duran? Not sure, but it matters not – it sounds great.

With ‘In This Life’, there is still a good deal of catchiness onboard, but truth is that this song won’t make it into the greatest hits compilation. If there’s a filler on this album, this is the one.

‘Burn’ is a more appealing piece and is closely related to the first four songs of the album. Good stuff.

With ‘Deep Inside’, new paths are trodden again. The oriental flavour of the intro and ensuing massive groove convince from the first second. Even the ballad-like bridge doesn’t ruin it. Very nice. I can already see thousands of fans making the ground shake as they jump along to beginning of this tune at festivals around the world.

The tradition of including a ballad hasn’t gone away for In Flames. In fact, there are two on this one. ‘All The Pain’ is an outpouring of emotions and angst in the way only Anders Fridén can do it from the very outset, but it turns into a pretty powerful piece as it goes along. The album finalé, ‘Stay With Me’, I can’t really get a grasp of. Granted, there’s something genuinely eerie about the atmosphere of it, but most of all, I think it’s not going anywhere, even if it grows into a crescendo of sorts towards the very end.

So, there it is, In Flames anno 2019. Still pushing boundaries for both themselves and metal music. There’s a couple of misses on the album in my humble view, but also standard killer In Flames songs and then a couple of truly amazing tunes. Which, I suppose, is also a standard of sorts when the band is In Flames.

Sarea – Black At Heart

Sophie Ruhnke — Tue, 23 May 2017 17:16:48 +0000

Three years have passed since Sarea, the modern melodic metal band from Norrköping, Sweden, released their album This Is Not Goodbye. Supporting the band since my review of the very same album, I was now given the opportunity to review their new album Black at Heart after a long pause from Power of Metal.

My expectations were high, but Sarea fulfilled them with ease. The album is filled with melodies that get stuck in your head. Already the first song is a good example for that. ‘Lights,’ which is the first single as well, starts slowly with a nice electronic melody which builds up and explodes to become a fist-in-the-face killer song and a perfect start to the album.

Followed by some other in-your-face-songs, we then come to one of my favorites from the album, ‘Let Us Fall’. It clearly shows the strengths of the band: a catching melody, beautiful lyrics emotionally sung (especially because it’s a balladic song and I love those), and just amazing from the beginning until the end.

After these four minutes of peacefulness, songs like ‘The Dormant National’ and ‘Dead Eyes’ (containing a beautiful piano melody) strike back in the album’s second half as some the heaviest songs. With ‘Circles,’ the album ends strongly and leaves the audience (in this case me, myself, and I) wanting more.

As I said before, Sarea have really improved since This Is Not Goodbye. Chris Forsberg’s vocals (more specifically his screams) got stronger, the melodies are on point, and the instruments are more geared to each other. In addition, I like every single song of the album, and that’s a thing I don’t say that often.

It’s always nice to see young bands grow and get better with each album. Some bands start well with their first record(s), but then they try too much to find “their” sound, and sometimes even leave the paths of metal in the process (*cough* Amaranthe *cough*) Sarea however just focus on their style and keep perfecting and evolving. That is the reason for me to give “only” nine devils, because I already saw their progress and I am sure they can still be better on their next album.

To conclude, Black at Heart is definitely one of my favorite albums of the year. Therefore, if you like music à la Killswitch Engage, Trivium, and In Flames be sure to check out Sarea!