For a band marking 35 years in a notoriously fickle music scene, a new album is a significant milestone. For the Swedish death metal pioneers Centinex, their twelfth full-length record, ‘With Guts and Glory,’ was meant to be a ferocious, unapologetic statement of intent. But just as the album’s raw, punk-infused fury was being prepared for an October 25, 2025 release, a profound and unwelcome silence fell over the band’s war machine.

In early 2025, the band delivered the kind of news that transcends music. Vocalist Henrik “Henka” Andersson had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a serious form of cancer requiring immediate and extensive chemotherapy. With a clarity that speaks volumes about their priorities, the band made a difficult but necessary decision: all confirmed 2025 tour dates were canceled, and the release of the new album was postponed.

Suddenly, the album’s title was transformed. What might have been dismissed as a standard genre platitude became an accidentally profound prophecy, a mission statement for a battle that had nothing to do with stage theatrics and everything to do with life itself. The “guts” were no longer just a lyrical theme but a direct reflection of Andersson’s personal fight and the band’s unwavering support. The “glory” was not merely the roar of a crowd but the legacy of a 35-year career and the ultimate triumph of recovery they now seek.

The story of Centinex has always been one of resilience, but it is now inextricably linked to a struggle far more real than any apocalyptic fantasy they have ever conjured. Their journey is a microcosm of the Swedish death metal scene itself—a testament to survival, evolution, and an unwavering commitment to a singular artistic vision, culminating in an album whose meaning has been irrevocably deepened by real-world adversity.

Centinex: Forged in the Stockholm Gloom

The Birth of the Buzzsaw (1990-1997)

When Centinex formed in 1990 in the small Swedish towns of Hedemora and Avesta, the sound that would define their nation’s contribution to extreme metal was still congealing in the cold Stockholm air. Unlike the scene brewing in Florida, which was a more direct descendent of thrash metal, Swedish death metal was born from a different, grittier primordial soup. Its DNA was spliced with the raw, driving aggression of D-beat and hardcore punk bands like Anti Cimex and Mob 47, a lineage that prized visceral energy over technical complexity.

Central to this new movement was a sound—the iconic “buzzsaw” guitar tone. Pioneered by guitarist Leffe Cuzner of the seminal band Nihilist, this sound was achieved by pushing a Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal guitar pedal to its absolute limits, creating a thick, grinding, and utterly punishing distortion. This sonic signature was honed at Stockholm’s Sunlight Studio, the crucible where the Stockholm sound was forged. It was here that Centinex recorded their 1992 debut album, ‘Subconscious Lobotomy,’ placing them squarely within this burgeoning and influential tradition. The album was a slab of classic Swedeath, replete with the fat, razor-sharp guitars and creepy, dark vocals that defined the era.

Yet, even in their infancy, Centinex displayed a restlessness that would become their hallmark. While many of their peers remained dogmatically attached to the Stockholm formula, Centinex began to evolve. Their 1996 album, ‘Malleus Maleficarum,’ and its 1997 follow-up, ‘Reflections,’ saw the band venturing into more melodic, atmospheric, and even black-metal-adjacent territories.

This period was also marked by a decision that remains a point of contention and curiosity among fans: due to persistent lineup instability and the difficulty of finding a suitable drummer, the band resorted to using a drum machine, credited cryptically as “Kalimaa.” While controversial, it was a stark testament to their core drive—a determination to continue creating music against all odds, even if it meant embracing the synthetic to channel their organic rage.

A Phoenix in Flames, a Demon Unleashed (1998-2014)

The period from 1998’s ‘Reborn Through Flames’ to 2005’s ‘World Declension’ was one of relentless output and constant evolution. The band released five studio albums in seven years, each one a further refinement of their hybrid sound, blending their Stockholm roots with the melodic sensibilities of the Gothenburg scene, the aggression of American death metal, and thrash metal flourishes. This era was a whirlwind of lineup changes, a revolving door of vocalists, guitarists, and drummers. Through it all, one man remained: bassist Martin Schulman, the band’s founder and sole constant member, the anchor in a sea of perpetual change.

This relentless drive, however, eventually led to a breaking point. In 2006, Centinex disbanded. In a later interview, Schulman revealed that the decision was his alone, born not of acrimony but of creative exhaustion. “I felt that enough was enough, I felt that I had taken the band as far as I could,” he explained, citing a need to pursue something new. That new direction was Demonical, a band formed with other ex-Centinex members with the express purpose of creating a purer, more focused strain of the classic Swedish death metal they had helped pioneer.

For eight years, Centinex lay dormant while Demonical carved out its own respected space in the underground. Then, in 2014, Schulman resurrected the beast. This was not a simple cash-in reunion, but a calculated artistic choice. The split and reformation were not a story of failure and comeback, but rather a deliberate schism by Schulman to house two distinct, parallel visions of death metal. He had been writing material that did not fit Demonical’s Swedish aesthetic, music he described as “more influenced by the old North American scene,” citing the groovy, mid-tempo brutality of Florida bands like Obituary and Massacre.

Centinex was reborn as the proper vessel for this sound. The resulting 2014 album, ‘Redeeming Filth,’ was the realization of this new mission, a muscular, heavyweight offering that was Swedish by geography but Floridian by design. This act of creative curation—maintaining two distinct bands to explore different facets of the same genre—reveals a level of artistic dedication and genre scholarship that sets Schulman apart, framing him as not just a musician, but a custodian of death metal’s varied traditions.

A Reset with ‘Death in Pieces’

Following the 2014 comeback, Centinex released ‘Doomsday Rituals’ in 2016, an album that continued to mine the depths of straightforward, gore-themed death metal. But the four years leading to their eleventh album, 2020’s ‘Death in Pieces,’ marked another profound shift, effectively serving as a “soft reset” for the band. Once again, Schulman was the sole remaining member from the previous incarnation, and he rebuilt the band from the ground up.

The new lineup featured guitarist Jörgen Kristensen, drummer Florian Rehn, and, in a pivotal change, new vocalist Henrik “Henka” Andersson, making his recording debut with Centinex. This overhaul brought a corresponding sonic evolution. ‘Death in Pieces’ saw the band pivot from a purer Swedish sound toward the groove-centric, mid-tempo weight of the classic Florida death metal scene.

While perceived by many as a sonic pivot, Schulman himself viewed the album not as a new direction but as a direct continuation of the style established since the 2014 comeback. Tracks like ‘Cauterized’ and ‘Tomb of the Dead’ were built on a foundation of heavy, stomping riffs and a direct, no-frills brutality that drew comparisons to American acts like Obituary.

Andersson’s harsher, more caustic vocal delivery was central to this new identity, yet it possessed a clarity that made the album’s death-obsessed lyrics surprisingly intelligible. Released via Agonia Records, the album was seen as a brutally effective and professional display of old-school death metal. While not aiming to reinvent the genre, its simple, powerful execution was widely praised and successfully carved out a clearer sonic distinction between Centinex and Schulman’s more melodic band, Demonical.

‘Death in Pieces’ established a new baseline of raw, groove-focused power, setting the stage for the even more primal, punk-infused aggression promised on ‘With Guts and Glory.’

A Declaration of Intent: ‘With Guts and Glory’

The Sound of No Compromise

Scheduled for release on October 24, 2025, via the Swedish label Black Lion Records, ‘With Guts and Glory’ promises to be Centinex’s most ferocious and uncompromising offering in years. Promotional materials describe a raw, high-energy album that strips away all excess, focusing on a potent blend of “old-school death metal with thrash riffs, d-beat fury, and punk urgency.”

This description signals a significant artistic pivot. It is not merely a “back to basics” approach but a conscious course correction. After years of stylistic evolution and a reformation built on a non-Swedish sound, the language used to describe this album—specifically “d-beat fury” and “punk urgency”—points directly back to the most primal DNA of the original Stockholm scene. It suggests a deliberate move to shed the melodic and experimental layers accumulated over the decades and re-embrace the foundational aggression that started it all.

It is a declaration that, after 35 years, the purest form of their art remains the most potent. The album’s eight tracks—‘Becoming,’ ‘Your Religion Dies Tonight,’ ‘Gods Of Guilt,’ ‘I Am The Way,’ ‘A Masterpiece In Flesh,’ ‘In My Dreams,’ ‘Symphony Of Screams,’ and ‘Sorrowtears’—are poised to be the embodiment of this renewed, primal focus.

A Tour Deferred

The news of Henka Andersson’s illness brought the band’s formidable momentum to a halt, forcing the cancellation of all 2025 touring plans. Among the casualties were high-profile appearances that would have marked a triumphant return to the international stage, most notably a slot at the legendary Obscene Extreme Festival in the Czech Republic, a gathering they had eagerly described as a “total freak show.”

The void left by their absence is palpable, but it is not one of despair. In a series of candid social media updates, Andersson has provided a voice of defiant optimism. In late May, he announced that his treatment had been “very successful” and that, according to scans, “all that aggressive shit is gone!”

While acknowledging a long road to recovery, he set a clear goal: to be fully “fit for fight in September,” looking forward to getting the album out, playing shows, and—in a touch of welcome normalcy—growing back his beard. His voice, full of hope and resolve, has become the narrative’s anchor, transforming a story of hardship into one of anticipated victory.

Conclusion

The story of Centinex is, in many ways, the story of Swedish death metal itself. It was born from punk-fueled rage, defined by a uniquely abrasive sound, and forced to evolve and survive through decades of shifting trends and internal turmoil. It has weathered breakups and rebirths, always returning to the core principles of its art form.

With its release now on a hopeful horizon, ‘With Guts and Glory’ is poised to become more than just the band’s twelfth album. It has been imbued with a significance that no marketing campaign could ever manufacture. Its raw, uncompromising sound is a powerful declaration of artistic principle, a reclamation of the band’s most primal identity. And its delayed release has transformed it into a profound symbol of human resilience, and of the powerful, familial bonds of a band that has stood together for over three decades.

The metal world now waits, not just for the album’s ferocious sound to finally break the silence, but for the triumphant and healthy return of a band that has unequivocally earned its glory through guts. The fight continues, and victory awaits.