Soilwork – ‘Övergivenheten’ CD

With At The Gates, Dark Tranquillity and Arch Enemy still releasing sterling albums, plus the upcoming box office bout between In Flames and The Halo Effect, Swedish melodic death metal has found itself at its most high profile for years.

Naturally, you can not approach the subgenre without mentioning Soilwork, which has been on their run of evolution and form, as evidenced by their last full-length, 2019’s ‘Verkligheten,’ and the excellent 2020 EP, ‘A Whisp Of The Atlantic.’ As such, album 12 sees the Helsingborg collective brimming with confidence to push themselves while producing instantaneous songs.

It is this melding of the two projects that really takes off halfway through proceedings when ‘Death, I Hear You Calling’ and ‘Dreams Of Nowhere’ rock up with unashamed swagger and mid-tempo stomp while ‘This Godless Universe’ and ‘Golgata’ take flight off a wall of drums, synths, strings and shimmer.

Finally, ‘On The Wings Of A Goddess Through Flaming Sheets Of Rain’ wraps most of ‘Övergivenheten’s ideas into seven and a half minutes of duelling guitars, diverse textures and Speed’s soaring vocals, capping off a victorious album in style. Seemingly written off in their prime, Soilwork’s resurgence is one of the genre’s finest tales of triumph.