When I first joined Metal Temple Magazine, 4 years ago, one of the very first promo CDs I was assigned with (first or second...my memory is going all bad) was Soilwork's third album, A Predator's Portrait. I strongly remember how impressed I was by their playing attitude - a rising force in the Swedish Death Metal scene. And now, after all those years...here I am again, reviewing Soilwork's new album, Stabbing The Drama. I think Soilwork and I are chained to each other but hey...I'll stop stabbing the drama right here and I'll move on to what's more important; the music!
When you first listen to a band, you pinpoint that moment on your musical map as a point of reference marking the band's musical status (shredding-wise) at that time. Four years ago, A Predator's Portrait sounded to me (as you can read by clicking on the link given before the review's text) as something quite smashing. It did have its clean vocals here and there, its softer moments (yeah, well, not soft as in The Titanic soft - No, wait...that movie wasn't soft, it was ridiculous) but it still was a bone-crushing piece of work! Yeah, I know that Soilwork have released Natural Born Chaos (2002) and Figure Number Five (2003) since then but these two albums are actually the transition to where the band stands right now...
With a quite polished production (more polished than in the past - in my opinion), with more clean vocals (some reminding me of the turnarounds the vocals in Nu-Metal songs have), more electronic samples lurking behind the guitars and vocals... Stabbing The Drama reminds me more of a Nu-Metal/Hardcore album rather than what I'd expect by a Swedish Death Metal band; especially Soilwork. Sure they always had keys and clean vocals in their previous works but hey, I can't lie saying I like this album just because there are two or three pounding tracks on this release. You got that right, I'm one disappointed metalhead.
I know all these bands (In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, Soilwork etc) keep moving onwards in terms of musical progression but they could at least try not to blend with styles like Nu-Metal and Hardcore when there already are bands out there doing that specific thing, playing what they know best (be it Nu-Metal or whatever).
Soilwork's a band with great ambitions and they surely love what they do, that's for sure and I will definitely give them credit for that despite my disliking Stabbing The Drama on an overall view. Like this album or not, one thing's for sure...they've still got a long way to go and lots of things to do and I've still got faith in these guys - they shall deliver more good stuff in years to come.
- Album Highlights: Weapon Of Vanity, Stalemate and Blind Eye Halo.