CD review SOILWORK ‘A Whisp of the Atlantic’

Soilwork delivers a small masterpiece with their new EP ‘A Whisp of the Atlantic’. The guys from Helsingborg, a charming town on the west coast of Sweden, are releasing an album that can be enjoyed from start to finish. Five tracks spice up this EP, which leads to a running time of 37 minutes. Well, some death metal albums are not much longer these days and what gives ‘A Whisp of the Atlantic’ a solid and impressive running time is the title track. With more than 16 minutes the epos surpasses everything Soilwork have delivered up to now.

While the waves roll onto the beach, a piano creates an almost comfy jazz atmosphere. In such an environment growls are inappropriate and that’s why frontman Bjorn Strid starts with clean vocals. Slowly the swell increases and the relaxing beach feeling gives way to more intense sounds. ‘A Whisp of the Atlantic’ combines in a unique way the melodic reliability of The Night Flight Orchestra, the harshness of Soilwork and a progressive sound structure to a mix I didn’t expect. Fierce death metal passages alternate with a series of trumpets that create a laid back bar atmosphere. David Andersson and band mates have created a masterpiece that is not only musically compelling but also delivers lyrically. The song is about alienation. How do we deal with a situation that changes everything so much that we will never return to the exact same way of lifestyle we knew from before? And will something even better come out of it? The topic fits very well into the current times and Andersson offers a philosophical platform for discussion accompanied by a strong musical framework.

After one left the title track behind, one still has four further songs to explore. ‘Feverish’, ‘Desperado’ and ‘Death Diviner’ are thematically connected before ‘The Nothingness and the Devil’ rounds off the event. The songs are about desire, urge and determinism, tunes that are musically rooted in melodic death metal as we know it from Soilwork. Not quite as progressive as the title track and a little more composed to the point, Soilwork deliver a full musical broadside to the audience.

Almost two years after having released ‘Verkligheten’, Soilwork returns with a stellar EP that shows the entire creativity of the band. The title track is for sure the most mature tracks Soilwork ever released, an epos that puts the bar to a next level.