Anyone’s favourite memory of Swedish melodic death metal band Soilwork will be how they are aggressive and yet hooky all at once – vocalist Bjorn Strid personifying an arena-rocker and growler all in one.
And if you don’t know the first thing about Soilwork, think about this – they love uniformity, have a great eye (and in this case, ear) for design and they’ve got Abba to look up to for vocal inspiration. Why do we have to mention Abba and a death metal band in the same sentence? Well, you just tune into any of the 11 tracks on The Ride Majestic , the 10th album by Soilwork, and there are vocal hooks and melodies on there that will immediately stick in your head – much like any of Abba’s works.
Additionally, every instrument is just played so tight and neat that it sounds crushing. Straight from the title track “The Ride Majestic” that’s followed up by “Alight in the Aftermath”, there’s impeccable drumming. There’s a beautiful, relentless chaos on the second part of the title track “The Ride Majestic” (Aspire Angelic). They clock in at five minutes with the more moody and well-memorable “Petrichor By Sulphur”. You have to remember that Soilwork is coming in from a double album, The Living Infinite , to pack in the message and the sound in about half the songs now.
They’ve done it before, of course, which explains why they like to switch up the tempo with a ballad-turned-riff-fest like “Whirl of Pain”.
Best known for their albums such as Stabbing the Drama and Sworn to a Great Divide , and you can still hear a hint of that frenetic energy on one of the best moments on the album, “All Along Echoing Paths”, although to a death metal fan, coming in at track nine, it might seem like it just borrows all the elements from previous tracks in a crisp composition.
They close the way melodic death metallers should – with a lot of majesty, a lot of flourish and some slow-burn heaviness on “Father and Son Watching the World Go Down”. While they’ve got a few bland numbers and you can more or less chalk out their formula by the end of 11 tracks, The Ride Majestic is Soilwork still sailing strong, staying heavy and catchy as they’ve best been remembered for.