SOILWORK: A Predator's Portrait

Produced by Fredrik Nordström and Soilwork

Released: 2001

Their first release was a surprise and a revelation, the second cemented their reputation. With just two albums, Soilwork had showed themselves to be one of the very best of the plethora of melodic death metal bands to have emerged since the term was coined. They were young, they were talented and they knew how to make all the parts fit together. All they needed was another album to saw that they really were in for the long haul. A Predator's Portrait set that in stone.

Under the guiding hand of master producer Fredrik Nordström, A Predator's Portrait is instantly infectious from the very moment that "Bastard Chain" makes itself known. From start to end, this is nothing but a breakneck collection of hook-laden groove and catchy riffs, studded with blazing melody lines that in no way inhibit the insidious brutality that lies beneath. If anything it only serves to give Soilwork's music even more bite, an attack that is even more fleshed out with some subtle keyboards that work so well with the guitars that I didn't even really notice them until I'd listened a couple of times. Not only that, but esteemed friends like Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth singing on the title track and Freak Kitchen's Mattias Eklundh dropping a ripping solo into "Needlefeast" helped to make things even more special. The most obvious progression was that evidenced in Björn Strid's vocals. A Predator's Portrait marked the point where he began to experiment with clean, melodic singing, an aspect that would shape the follow-up album (the Devin Townsend-produced Natural Born Chaos) and eventually the entire sound of the band. Nevertheless, its presence here is part of what made the songs work so well.

A Predator's Portrait is nothing less than an excellent release of ferocious melodic death metal from a band that would never quite sound the same way again.

1. Bastard Chain
2. Like the Average Stalker
3. Needlefeast
4. Neurotica Rampage
5. The Analyst
6. Grand Failure Anthem
7. Structure Divine
8. Shadowchild
9. Final Fatal Force
10. A Predator's Portrait

Rating: 90%

SOILWORK: Stabbing the Drama

Released: 2005

Soilwork has been a favourite around the Sound Celler for a number of years. The albums from The Chainheart Machine through to Natural Born Chaos virtually epitomised the modern Swedish metal sound in almost the same kind of way that At the Gates and Edge of Sanity had done ten years before and it was clear that the band was destined to erupt from the shackles of mere cult appreciation at some point. The relative disappointment of the commercially-aimed Figure Number Five showed Soilwork beginning to pander to a wider audience, but even that failed to prepare me for the watered-down, generic travesty they were to become with this, their sixth album.

Stabbing the Drama is a weak, boring pop-metal album, but it’s not because it’s pop-metal that it’s weak and boring. It’s weak and boring because it is so formulaic and safe there’s nothing to surprise the listener or to keep them interested. Each song repeats the same harsh verse-clean chorus-breakdown-chorus recipe again and again, while being completely devoid of ideas, hooks or anything like real riffs. It’s bad enough when bands recycle bits of previous albums, but it’s much worse when they start recycling the same songs, especially when those songs aren’t very good in the first place. After a couple of good albums, a couple of great ones, and one that was just okay, Soilwork was due for a stinker, and Stabbing the Drama is it.

1. Stabbing the Drama
2. One With the Flies
3. Weapon of Vanity
4. The Crestfallen
5. Nerve
6. Stalemate
7. Distance
8. Observation Slave
9. Fate in Motion
10. Blind Eye Halo
11. If Possible

Rating: 20%