I’ve been a fan of Soilwork for a good 2 and a half years now, having started my fandom with Stabbing The Drama, their penultimate release. I got really into their older stuff the more I listened to them. They’ve always had a distinct sound full of strong melody. They’re a band full of good stuff. Unfortunately, they just released a sub-par album. Sworn To A Great Divide is an album they should have left off their repertoire and saved up the potential for a release farther in the future.
If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s bad dialogue. That goes for movies, plays, commercials, and yes, songs. If the lyrics are poorly written, I just can’t concentrate on anything else. Bjorn “Speed” Strid’s very apparent happiness in his life currently reflects in his trying-too-hard-to-be-mad lyrics. I HATE bad grammar. Call me idiotic, but even bad grammar in lyrics annoys me. Now, if some Southern lass is talking up a frenzied storm about the big county dance she’s going to, I expect some poorly situated words. That’s natural. However, songs like Martyr and their horribly dramatic “I don’t want nobody to hurt me, every time I see your face in the night, I know it’s all a voice in my head” moments just murder every attempt I make at actively listening to song craft.
Bjorn himself has let me down on this one too. He’s always been somewhat of a charismatic frontman, someone you enjoy listening to because of his versatility in going
from screams to sings. He’s pretty much a happy person, living life the way he wants to live it. With all of that being said, he sounds weak as hell on this album. Metal is a type of music that produces its own testosterone. A frontman that can manage that testosterone and channel it into angry, entertaining, and intense music has done his job. Bjorn shows a little too much of his lighter side on this album. If that’s what he wants to do, good for him. I have no problem with optimism and happiness and sing-songy vocals…the stuff just doesn’t belong in metal. You’d think that Bjorn Strid knows that, fronting a band that’s been a part of the Swedish Death Metal scene for over a decade. Almost all of Soilwork’s albums feature Strid’s crisp singing vocals, but on a much smaller scale. A majority of the songs get sing-y only in the choruses; choruses, I may mention, that vary in construct and are sometimes hard to pick out. He pisses his vocals away far too often on this album, sometimes hitting falsetto notes in the very apparent hooks.
The music isn’t too bad. It still has that Soilwork feel to it with those highly melodic yet crunching strums on basses and guitars that I faithfully know Soilwork to have. Many of the songs keep me interested based on the music alone. The chord progressions, however sometimes predictable, are good ones. The problem is that the songs no longer have that special songcraft they used to have. Past Soilwork classics like the beautifully synthesized As We Speak, the brutally melancholic and melodic Shadowchild, and the intense The Flameout kick the shit out of you at every turn, mixing Bjorn’s believable screams with occasional crisp singing and occasional guest grunters. The compositions on Sworn… lack that same intensity, that sneaking bite, that underlying layer of brute force and anger that Soilwork has had in the past. This fact, though, along with the poor lyrical construction of the songs, was predictable.
Metal Hammer, one of the best metal magazines in print, did a spread on Soilwork in last December’s issue. Amidst the talks of Bjorn’s happiness in life, the article highlighted the fact that a good part of Soilwork’s lineup has been changed. In 2005, Peter Wichers left the band because he was too damn tired of touring. That was a big one. Wichers was one of the founding members of the band as well as one of the key song-writers. There is one big hint right there. No more Wichers, no more probability of strong songs. That’s not to say that the seasoned professionals that are Bjorn Strid and Ola’s Fink and Frenning, the three strongholds of the band, don’t know what they’re doing. They’ve been a part of a strong metal flow for years out there in Swede-country. Unfortunately for them, a band that consistently puts out good music is a band whose members work in perfect harmony with each other. When a key song writer leaves a band, a noticeable hit is taken, no matter how good the remaining members are. This is the case with today’s Soilwork.
There are still some good songs on the album, though. One of my favorites, Sick Heart River, sounds like it actually comes from somewhere; it has drive behind it and a touch of passion; it doesn’t sound like it was put in the album for filler. The album’s third track, Breeding Thorns, regardless of having that catchy quality complete with hooks, stands out amongst the rest. The songs, even the weak ones, are still Soilwork’s, a band I still like. I’ll still listen to the album, but not as much as I will to their previous albums…not to mention the fact that I’ll probably skip around on this one, too.
Aside from still being somewhat pleasant to listen to, the songs on Sworn To A Great Divide are watered down and border-line radio-friendly. Going from Soilwork’s past credits to their current is like going from Newcastle to Bud Light. It’s all good and goes down smooth, but the prior has more kick than the latter.
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Comment by Ninthe — November 30, 2007 @ 4:19 am
I know what you mean by watered down, but I like it. The more stripped down the better. The “beautifully synthesized As We Speak” - I always thought that was a great song, but the synthesizers annoyed me. In my opinion soilwork improved over the years, though I think the last album is a bit too ‘emo’.
If you hate poor lyrics (I totally agree with you…), listen to the song ‘I close my eyes’ of the band Pain. My own English isn’t perfect, but this song really makes my skin crawl. Writing lyrics should be a form of art too.