Tag: Swedish metal

Firebreather return with “Creed” – the new single from their upcoming album “Dwell in the Fog.”

Swedish trio Firebreather share a new track today from their forthcoming album Dwell In The Fog via Metal Injection. Hear and share “Creed” HERE. (Direct YouTube and Bandcamp.)

Revolver Magazine previously shared the first single “Kiss Of Your Blade” HERE. (Direct YouTube.)

Gothenburg, Sweden trio Firebreather’s 2019 RidingEasy Records debut album Under a Blood Moon was a powerhouse that most certainly established the band’s incendiary potential. But none of us would be prepared for the suffocating onslaught that is Dwell in the Fog. While that album was in-your-face and raw, Dwell in the Fog rumbles and rages with a fury the band had only hinted at previously. 
Firebreather has a streamlined focus on driving, symphonic riffs in the vein of High on Fire, Inter Arma and their tour- and label-mates Monolord. The guitar and bass tones are, quite simply, entrancing. Paired with vocalist/guitarist Mattias Nööjd’s guttural yet melodic howls and drummer Axel Wittbeck’s groove based rhythms, their entire sound flows like thick, viscous lava. 

“The album is a cathartic journey inwards and a musical continuation from Under A Blood Moon, but with more emphasis on groove and feel,” Nööjd says. From the first notes of album opener “Kiss Of Your Blade” you’ll know exactly what he means. 
Like their preceding two albums, Dwell in the Fog was also recorded and mixed by engineer Oskar Karlsson at Elementstudion in Gothenburg. The band is joined by new bassist Nicklas Hellqvist on this album, who seems to have increased the thunder rumble tenfold. 

From the aforementioned album opener “Kiss Of Your Blade”, with its droning opening chords over a rollicking tom pattern, the band quickly shifts gears into a head bobbing, serpentine riff with a transcendent melodic hook. Elsewhere, as on the title track and “Weather The Storm” rapid-fire hummable riffs come and go in an ever-shifting mass of devastating swirling churn. It’s like the band has such an endless supply of great hooks that to, ahem, dwell for too long on any one would undo their constantly building momentum. That they somehow give each song, and the album as a whole, a streamlined and cohesive, monolithic groove is testament to their skill. And, proof that the album must be absorbed in its entirety to experience the overwhelming swaying and lunging low end growl that drives the band’s most captivating work to date. 

Dwell in the Fog will be available on LP, CD and download on February 25th, 2022 via RidingEasy Records. 

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Dave at US / THEM Group.]

Review: Alastor – Onwards and Downwards

If you’ve been thinking there isn’t any good doom metal out there right now, allow me to use a phrase I find myself saying now and then, “Meanwhile, in Sweden…”

In Sweden, Alastor have been crafting heavy, spooky doom metal for a few years now, and their new album, Onwards and Downwards, is about (in the words of guitarist Hampus Sandell) “…one person’s gradual slip into insanity. An ongoing nightmare without end. It also sums up the state of the world around us as this year has clearly shown.”

So, don’t expect a happy-go-lucky record. Expect skull / soul-crushing riffs and images of things watching you from the shadows.

Opening track “The Killer in My Skull” unleashes a fusillade of cymbal crashes, rocketing riffs, and vocals about questioning reality. “Dead Things in Jars” creeps around you like something in a secret laboratory you just found in a witch’s basement. Sandell’s solo on it is slick. “I hear them callin’, shadows are fallin’…There’s no denyin’, red eyes are cryin’…” Is it a warning or a lament? It’s probably both. The breakdown around the five-minute mark leads to heavy riffs suitable for something emerging from a cauldron.

I’m fairly certain I can hear a piano being pounded on during the rocking, reeling “Death Cult” – a song made for blasting out of the windows of your muscle car are you’re being chased (or you’re chasing) werewolf bikers. The bass groove alone is pretty damn cool. “Nightmare Trip” could be a subtitle for the year 2020. “Shadows like walls around me slowly closing in,” they sing with a slight edge of reverbed fuzz on the vocals that mixes well with the killer bee buzz guitars. The tolling bell at the end is a great touch.

Believe it or not, there’s acoustic guitar on the instrumental “Kassettband,” showing that Alastor aren’t a one-trick pony and could easily be a psych-band if they wished. The nearly ten-minute-long title track (complete with spooky haunted house organ) has vocals that seem to cry out from behind an ornate mirror that was formerly covered in a dusty crimson cloak. The guitars and drums feel like they’re rising up from the ground to become something you can’t escape (“There is no place you can hide…”). The song somehow gets creepier around the seven-minute-mark, especially with lyrics like, “Your dying heart is beating faster as you are pushing through the night.” The closing track, “Lost and Never Found,” is another heavy-hitter that further explores the descent into madness a lot of us were sensing for the last year.

It’s a heavy record, both in sound and theme, and well worth a listen. Yes, it’s about staring and walking into the abyss, but the riffs are powerful enough to give you the strength to emerge from it like a warrior.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Dave at US / THEM Group.]

Alastor dare you to examine “Dead Things in Jars” from their upcoming album.

Swedish rock band Alastor share the first single from their forthcoming album Onwards and Downwards today via Heavy Blog Is Heavy. Hear and share “Dead Things In Jars” HERE. (Direct YouTube and Bandcamp.)

Metal Injection recently hosted the first single, the driving rocker “Death Cult” HERE. (YouTube.)

Excelsior! It’s the hail of yore that one should go ever onward and upward. And so, fittingly Onwards and Downwards is the occultist Swedish band Alastor’s clever call to arms… and also a reflection of our collective dark state of mind these days. 

“If our last album Slave to the Grave were about death, this record is more about madness,” says guitarist Hampus Sandell. “You can look at the whole record as one person’s gradual slip into insanity. An ongoing nightmare without end. It also sums up the state of the world around us as this year has clearly shown.” 

Alastor is heavy doom rock for the wicked and depraved. Drenched in heavy, distorted darkness and steeped in occult horror that will make your skin crawl and ears cry sweet tears of blood, the band is revitalized in 2021 with meticulously crafted songs and new drummer Jim Nordström bringing a hard-hitting and precise energy. 

“It’s a more focused record but at the same time it’s more personal and naked. More raw emotion and pain,” Hampus says. The band recorded the album with the help of Joona Hassinen of Studio Underjord, who has helped with mixing since their ”Blood on Satan’s Claw” EP in 2017. Christoffer Karlsson of The Dahmers also assisted with overdubs and encouraged the band to demo the material early on, aiding in the album’s more deliberate and tighter feel. 

From the first note of opener “The Killer In My Skull” the guitars are far thicker and out front than ever, and Nordström pummels the snare and kick like a young Dave Grohl. Bassist/vocalist Robin Arnryd’s chorus-drenched voice soars above it all like a one-man choir, at times harmonizing beautifully with shimmering Hammond organ notes. Nary a moment is wasted on the droning navel-gazing of lesser bands. Particularly, the driving anthem “Death Cult” which sounds like it would fit comfortably on QOTSA’s Songs For The Deaf, though there’s considerably more heft here. The title track pays its due to the Devil’s tritone in a marvelously woven framework of intertwining melodies befitting the album’s theme of descent into madness. 

The quartet released its epic 3-song debut album Black Magic in early 2017 via Twin Earth Records, followed by the 2-track “Blood On Satan’s Claw” EP on Halloween the same year. Joining forces with RidingEasy Records in 2018, Alastor summoned the 7-track hateful gospel Slave To The Grave, which was packed with dynamic twists and turns, and funereal girth. It was met with considerable praise, setting the stage for the band’s greatest step onward (and upward… or downward, depending on your preferences.) 

Onwards and Downwards will be available on LP, CD and download on May 28th, 2021 via RidingEasy Records. 

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Dave at US / THEM Group.]

Spelljammer take us to the “Lake” on their first single in five years.

Stockholm, Sweden based trio Spelljammer share the first single from their forthcoming album Abyssal Trip today. Hear and share “Lake” via YouTube, Bandcamp and Spotify.


“The vastness of everything is something that I think about a lot,” says Spelljammer bassist/vocalist Niklas Olsson. And it certainly shows in both the expansive, sludgy sounds and contemplative lyrics of the Stockholm, Sweden based trio. Following a 5-year break between their previous album, Ancient of Days — perhaps fittingly spent pondering said vastness — Spelljammer is back with an album that perfectly bridges the band’s earlier desert rock leanings and their later massive, slow-burning riffs. 


Abyssal Trip (note: carefully re-read that album title) takes its moniker from the perpetually dark, cold, oxygen-free zone at the bottom of the ocean. The 6-song, 44-minute album fittingly embodies that bleak realm with rumbling, oozing guitars intercut with dramatic melodic interludes. The songs take their time to unfurl, making them even more hypnotic. Likewise, the lyrics take a poetic approach to establishing the sonic scenery.


“The lyrical themes we address, like the ultimate doom of man, and the search and longing for new and better worlds, are still there,” Olsson says. “The concept of something undiscovered out there in vast emptiness is pretty much always present.” 
The recording process for Abyssal Trip differs from previous releases in that the band — guitarist Robert Sörling, drummer Jonatan Rimsbo and Olsson — opted to capture the performances while holed up in the mental bathysphere of a house in the countryside near Stockholm. “The songs benefitted from the relaxed environment of being away from everything,” Olsson explains. Indeed, the album sounds confident and meticulously arranged, afforded by the band’s isolation. Sörling mixed the album and it was mastered by Monolord drummer Esben Willems at Berserk Audio.

Album opener “Bellwether” begins dramatically with a very slow, nearly minute-long fade in of rumbling distortion setting the stage for heavily distorted bass and guitar plucking out the lugubrious riff for another minute and a half before the drums begin, and likewise equally as long before vocals gurgle to the surface. “Lake” abruptly shifts gears, opening with an unusually fast gallop before rupturing into thundering doom that soon drops into a clean-tone Middle Eastern melodic breakdown. The title track serves as the album centerpiece, opening with ominous film dialogue about blood sacrifice that launches into pummeling, detuned guitars rumbling over gut-punching drums and howling vocals hearkening to the proto-sludge of Pink Floyd’s “The Nile Song.” The dynamic relents briefly for a slow building clean guitar melody before all instruments lock into a jerking riff topped off by a trilling Iommi style lead. Throughout, Abyssal Trip is, just like its title suggests, an epic tour through desolate zones which yields much to discover. 

Abyssal Trip will be available everywhere on LP, CD and download on February 26th, 2021 via RidingEasy Records. 

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Dave at US / THEM Group.]

Maggot Heart unleash “Mercy Machine” from upcoming sophomore album.

Berlin based hard rock band Maggot Heart shares the title track to their forthcoming sophomore album Mercy Machine today on all DSPs. Yesterday, the track premiered via Brooklyn Vegan HERE. Hear & share “Mercy Machine” via Bandcamp, Spotify and Apple Music. 

Linnéa Olsson‘s Maggot Heart is back with their sophomore album, which will be released on Linnéa’s brand new record label Rapid Eye Records. The Swedish guitarist and songwriter, based in Berlin since 2012, has made her band a much talked about force in the underground with their extensive touring (alongside Earthless and Voivod among others), cross-over hard rock sound, and punk ethos. 
The city as a throbbing organism is one of the fundamental themes of Maggot Heart, explored in several songs on City Girls (2017) and Dusk to Dusk (2018). On Mercy Machine (2020), the machinery of night runs on the steam of many bodies. Locked inside a prison of flesh the spirit will not soar, only in unity with the body can divine alchemy be achieved. Mercy Machine is a rock album about sex, death and the pursuit of freedom. 

This album was put together by Linnéa, long-time drumming partner Uno Bruniusson and bassist Olivia Airey (as well as on-and-off collaborator Gottfrid Åhman) at the end of 2019, and once again recorded in Stockholm, Sweden with award-winning producer Martin “Konie” Ehrencrona (Viagra Boys, In Solitude) in February 2020. It highlights Olsson’s catchy, but strangely jarring songwriting in ten cutting tracks, swerving back and forth on the rock genre-spectrum. These songs contain a highly entertaining blend of urgency, bleakness and undeniable attitude which may or may not appeal to fans of Voivod, The Stooges, and The Jesus Lizard. 
The incredible cover artwork is by Kristian Valbo, known to metal fans as the drummer for Obliteration.


Mercy Machine will be available on LP and download on July 10th, 2020 via Rapid Eye Records. Pre-orders are available HERE. 

On the Web: maggotheart.bandcamp.com / maggotheart.com /
rapideyerecords.com

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Dave at US / Them Group.]