SOILWORK Övergivenheten | Weekly Heavy Metal Album Review

Released by Nuclear Blast Records on August 19th, 2022

Quick Background

Soilwork is a Swedish melodic death metal band Formed in late 1995 by Björn Strid and Peter Wichers who left in 2012, originally under the name Inferior Breed, the band changed their name in late 1996 to Soilwork (meaning "working from the ground up").  David Andersson joined in 2012 on the guitars and by now together with Björn are the main songwriters. 

Övergivenheten

Their twelfth studio album Övergivenheten can be translated to The Abandonment, which describes the overall album theme. The album was written and recorded over three sessions between January and December 2021. It features 14 tracks in 66 minutes including two short instrumentals. That's a long album albeit not as long as their 2013's The Living Infinite with 84 minutes. 

The album opens with the 1:30 acoustic and epic intro of the title track "Övergivenheten". From there the song builds into a full blown modern Soilwork trademark song. Aggressiveness, speed, but very melodic. Balancing Death Metal screams with clean singing. From the get go I get a Killswitch Engage vibe. And that's a recurrent feeling. "Is It in Your Darkness" combines this vibe specially in its big chorus with a strong At The Gates influence. "This Godless Universe" continues this direction but adds a Nightwishy intro. It's also a good example how versatile and dynamic Bjorn is as singer. On top of all the clean and aggressive vocal changes, here he reaches his highest notes on the album. "Electric Again" is one of my favorites as balances perfectly the aggression with heavy riffs and drumming and verses with super melodic and catchy chorus. 

"Vultures", a groovy song with a catchy melodic chorus. It also features a melodic and traditional metal guitar solo. And that's another major influence on this album: Traditional Metal and Hard Rock. "Dreams of Nowhere" with its fast tempo intro, very death metal and again another catchy chorus with clean vocals mixed with an aggressive pre-chorus, is the exemplification on how Soilwork mastered the skill of combining death metal with hard rock / traditional metal. Take  "Valleys of Gloam", another heavy metal song with classic metal guitar solo and where we see Bjorn exploring variations of his clean vocals. Further we have "Death, I Hear You Calling" which features a very 80's hard rock flavor that is very contagious. The pure metal side is so strong on this album that track #2 "Nous Sommes la Guerre" is a pure traditional heavy metal song, there's nothing Death Metal about it, for what it is, it's a great fucking song.

But overall it's all about balance. As on the other hand we have a very heavy song like "Golgata" which is a bit more old style Soilwork. Or the cinematic intro to "Harvest Spine" which is darker track. "On The Wings Of A Goddess Through Flaming Sheets Of Rain" is the gigantic title of the closing track and longest song on the album with over seven minutes. It's an aggressive fast tempo song but also featuring a very melodic mid-section. It's an engaging guitar song and a good closing of the album.

Recorded at Nordic Sound Lab in Skara, Sweden again with producer Thomas “Plec” Johansson, who also produced the last two projects, Övergivenheten sounds really good and no surprises there.

The Picky Guy

The album is a bit too long and I was worried about it, but at the end of the day, it is working for me. There's enough variability and experiments to keep it interesting. The other concern is: are they bringing too much The Night Flight Orchestra into Soilwork? At first I thought yes, but after repeated listens, I am totally fine with it. 

Wrap Up Opinion 

Soilwork. has been evolving their sound for years into this perfect blend between Swedish Melo Death Metal meets Hard Rock/Traditional Metal. With Övergivenheten they may have found the perfect formula and it's their strongest album in many years. A very good achievement reaching easily 85/100 and I may upgrade it to Great later on. If it would be just a bit shorter. But overall for those who enjoy melo death and were happy with their latest albums, Övergivenheten will be a delight.  

SCORE: 87/100

Genre: Death Metal

Released by Nuclear Blast Records on August 19th, 2022

Rating System

99 - 100 Perfect
94 - 98 Excellent
87 - 93 Great
82 - 86 Very Good
77 - 81 Good
66 - 76 Mixed
58 - 65 Bad

wordcount = 698