SOILWORK
- A Predator's Portrait
Nuclear Blast Records
This is an interesting album but it doesn't top its predecessor 'The Chainheart Machine'. The riffs are good but not to that caliber. And the vocals are a little more laid back mixed with some clean bits. The music is what's awesome on here. The melodic rhythms that go along with the clean vocals (at times). I liked this release, it is just a little step down from the previous. The leads were outstanding though. As this was the older lineup. These guys have had a great career in music some good releases and some duds. This one is definitely not the latter, it's quality melodic death metal. The intensity is there just not as much.
They mellowed out on this release but the vocals
feature a lot of screaming. It's like a
mix of melodic death with metalcore. I
don't like metalcore much but the music is quality. I just don't like the fact that their
intensity lessened hence the "B" rating.
Their modern sound is like this too, their most recent
has a lot of mellow parts to them. 'Övergivenheten' which means "The
Abandonment" is their latest release that sounds a bit like this. I like both almost equally. They'll never get to the degree of 'The
Chainheart Machine' but they're still a good band releasing good music. They just fizzed out whereas they could've
progressed musically. I'm still a fan of
the band but I just had to lower my expectations of their releases after 'The
Chainheart Machine'. There are some good
songs on here mainly these: "Neurotic Rampage", "Final Fatal
Force" and the title track.
They're dealing with the loss of David Andersson who
joined the band in 2012-2022. He died
last year at 47 years of age. They can
still get to the caliber of this album as they did of their most recent. 'A Predator's Portrait' had some dynamite songs! They've just chilled out.
There will never be a Soilwork of this degree again,
but that doesn't mean that they're done as a band. This album is a good follow-up, just not
nearly as good as their predecessor. I
hope that they keep producing albums though!
Ryan “Death8699” Fanucchi
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