Soilwork = soul metal

[chimaera]

When people refer to swedish metal it´s usually the same bands over and over again. Yes, Opeth is a good band. In Flames and Meshuggah and Pain of Salvation (occassionally) are all good and bands but personally i prefer other bands.

Bands that affect me more are The Haunted, Wolverine, Lost Horizon, Enter the Hunt, Hardcore Superstar, and the new Dark Tranquillity with clean vocals will be 10 times better than anything Pain of Salvation has made.

However Soilwork still kills more than anything above. Stabbing the Drama, one of the five best works in the´00s and both Natural Born Chaos and Figure Number Five are partially utterly brilliant.

Soilwork = soul metal, simple as that.

[Parallel Delirium]

chimaera said:

When people refer to swedish metal it´s usually the same bands over and over again. Yes, Opeth is a good band. In Flames and Meshuggah and Pain of Salvation (occassionally) are all good and bands but personally i prefer other bands.

Bands that affect me more are The Haunted, Wolverine, Lost Horizon, Enter the Hunt, Hardcore Superstar, and the new Dark Tranquillity with clean vocals will be 10 times better than anything Pain of Salvation has made.

However Soilwork still kills more than anything above. Stabbing the Drama, one of the five best works in the´00s and both Natural Born Chaos and Figure Number Five are partially utterly brilliant.

Soilwork = soul metal, simple as that.

Actually, I think Soilwork is Melodic Death/Gothenburg, but that's beside the point.

Soilwork is a decent band (from what I've heard of them, which is only one song), and quite a few that I've talked to have attested to enjoying their music on more than one occasion. When I get the chance, I want to get Figure Number Five because it has the song "Light the Torch," which I remember really liking ;D

[BenMech]

Soilwork do have big language issues though.
Example A: the chorus of Mercury Shadow
"We know how to spit or swallow/
Bring out, the Mercury Shadow"

Pain of Salvation have never had such connotation problems.

[chimaera]

I agree their lyrics aren´t exactly nobel prize-material and even though i happen to think lyrics are important i just can´t get enough of songs like Overload and Figure Number Five, songs just don´t get any better in my world.

[anton]

chimaera said:

The new Dark Tranquillity with clean vocals will be 10 times better than anything Pain of Salvation has made.

Come on--10 times better than Remedy Lane, Entropia, The Perfect Element, Be and Scarsick combined? Not a chance, for me. Even if it ends up being my #1 album of 2007. ;D

Do you know exactly what's going on with the clean vocals? The DT website doesn't seem to have anything conclusive, and all the sound samples from the studio only feature the screaming vocals. I would really love to hear another Projector-style album, enhanced with all the new wisdom and skills the band has acquired between Haven and Character.

And yes, I agree that Soilwork is awesome. Everything from A Predator's Portrait on has been pretty much excellent (minus a few songs here and there).

[chimaera]

How´s Scarsick working for you? I heard one rap-metal song and it was ok, i´m a fan of rap-metal (the good band that is; i can only think of Rage Against the Machine) but can´t say i´m a huge fan of Pos. I´d rather spend an our at the Concrete Lake then listening to the Perfect Element, the songs are just more exciting.

I think you have to be high on drugs or in love or someting to appreciate the Perfect Element.. The Remedy Lane is another thing of course. Be is easy-listening, but partially great. The talks and the opera songs just gets old really fast.

Why would a Dream Theater website have anything concluse at all? I´ve read an interview with Stanne and he says the new album will have depth and aggression and he will use clean vocals for the first time in ten years.

A Natural Chaos appears to be their worst, it lasted six months, then it kind of faded away. But that´s ok for me, some music is meant be like fast-food.

[anton]

Scarsick is working really, really well for me. The rap metal songs are the first two, "Scarsick" and "Spitfall," and I can honestly say this is some of the best rap metal I've ever heard--I'm not exactly sure why, but I just can't stop listening to them. "Spitfall," especially, is just exhilarating. The rhythms are fantastic, and the melodic choruses beautiful in a subtle way. "Cribcaged" is the best song, a grandiose ballad similar to "Undertow" and "Iter Impius," but a bit angrier. And I just recently had a dream set to the music of the last three minutes of "Enter Rain," the concluding track. I was a bit skeptical about the album at first, but the more time I spend with it, the more I like it. I would buy it without reservation and give it time to grow on you. It's simpler than any of their earlier work, and it does have some very, very gratingly over-the-top, simplistic lyrics about the evils of materialism and industry ("America," "Flame to the Moth"), but they don't really ruin the album or are reason enough not to buy it.

I think I would rank the latter-day Soilwork albums as follows:

1. A Predator's Portrait
2. Stabbing the Drama
3. Natural Born Chaos
4. Figure Number Five

However, I have no serious complaints about any of them, and the order can easily keep changing.

[chimaera]

Wow.

If i hadn´t heard BE i´d be really interested. BE was underwhelming, and a bit disgusting too. I can´t get those awful opera songs and all that other nonsense out of my mind. Luckily 12:5 cleaned my ears and mind.

[anton]

Well, okay, but I think that's a somewhat defeatist attitude, and discourages me from saying anything further on the subject. You are basically implying that nothing I could have said could have made much difference: because of BE, Scarsick is suspect; because of Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing, The New Black is suspect.

You can take this approach to someone like Dream Theater, who have been known to stagnate for almost a decade; or to bands like Nightrage or H.I.M., who have never recorded particularly interesting music to begin with (though again, even with those there's always some hope). I really don't think it's right to approach bands like Pain of Salvation or SYL in quite the same manner. These bands are progressive in the true sense of the word--they change all the time, and always sound slightly different from album to album. One or two missteps shouldn't discredit them once and for all. I am not a very great fan of BE, it might be their weakest album for all I can tell, but nothing Pain of Salvation does will ever discourage me from buying their next CD, because I know they always have something to say, always try out new things. Some of them I like, and some of them fall flat on their face, but it's always a breath of fresh air because it's so independent-minded and adventurous. Scarsick is not their best album, and it does have it share of bad moments, but on the whole it's remarkable and deep, and can be listened to again and again. This really isn't that common an occurrence in music today (or even in general), and in my book at least, that is plenty to make it worth being part of a collection.

[chimaera]

I think you mistunderstand me, thanks to your Scarsick-review i might acutally pick it up.

Furthermore i completely agree about the progressive approach that these bands have. The kind of progressive edge and attitude to change is vital and rare. Some bands have have it (Fates Warning, PoS, Metallica) other don´t (In Flames, Chimaira, Darkane, Haunted) Hell, even Tool sound kind of the same but they already sound so diffrent so that´s beside the point.

[anton]

Ok--sorry if I misunderstood you.

I continue to revise my opinion of Scarsick in a more and more positive direction. Yesterday I listened to it again in its entirety, and everything clicked for me better than ever before. I maintain that there are 7 or 8 seriously bad lyrical moments, like rhymes that are way obvious ("Enter rain, and exit pain") and a couple moments of facile emotion ("It could have been good, America; / it could have been great, America.") However, at this point in time I am pretty much out of musical objections. Everything makes perfect sense, and is actually as catchy as the best parts of Remedy Lane and more so than The Perfect Element, Part I. "Enter Rain" ends on a non-committal fade-out, so the album seems to just sort of vanish unexpectedly when all is said and done, but that's pretty much the only thing that I find wrong with the music. So yes, it's highly recommended.

[chimaera]

In theory it sounds like they´ve done an Evergrey. Monday Mourning Apocalypse works well with me, more focus on melodies and songs than telling a complicated story. Way healthier than Inner Circle.

Top three Anton-cd´s that i probably wouldn´t have bought..

1 Nevermore 2005
I completely lost them when Dreaming in Neon Black Came. Four or five songs don´t make a cd, Godless.." is a progressive monster in comparison.

2 Rhotting Christ 2004
Black metal with depth and beauty.

3) Eyes of Fire 2004
Strange mix of modern brutal metal and gothic melancholy.