Finding your own style in the metal scene today is not easy. You decide what type of metal you want to play but then you have at least two options you can choose. Do it the easy way and end up like a ‘’clone’’ or try be different by play something the world hasn’t heard before.
Soilwork is probably one good example of how you can do to be successful by creating something new, or at least find your own sound.
Soilwork came to life somewhere in 1996 in Helsingborg, Sweden. They started as a melodic death metal band but eventually the band got a completely different sound. Gothenburg metal was mixed with melodies and the music got a lot groovier, but the music it still remained aggressive and forceful. From the beginning they were almost nothing and today they are one of Sweden’s most recognizable extreme metal bands. Even if the band has their own special sound they haven’t done much to ‘’evolve’’ it, most of their recent material sounds pretty much the same except that some albums might have more sting, aggression, melody or whatever. Anyway,
Soilwork is still active today and they have yet released seven albums, and the newest is called
Sworn To A Great Divine and it was released in 2007.
Claimed as one of the best metal albums of 2002,
Natural Born Chaos is one of
Soilwork’s best efforts. Or is it? Thanks to their album
[i]A Predator’s Portrait/[i] who made the band famous they reached a new level in their musical creativity. But there is no guarantee that you will like this album when you listen to it for the first time. First of all, this album is like a person with schizophrenia. At one moment the album is raging with aggression, force and anger. But later the other half appears and the music suddenly gets soft, melodic and emotional. And this occurs in many of the songs, some songs start with a aggressive intro (like
Mindfields or
Black Star Deceiver ) and then later in the choruses or verses all this emotionality comes up and ruins the flow of the songs. It is still quite easy to sort out the character of all the songs; there are some fast songs like
Follow The Hollow and some slower tracks like
As We Speak. But remember, all the songs are like a mix of both elements, so don’t expect any purebred ballads or head banger tracks from this album.
One thing about this band is their singer Bjorn Strid and his amazing vocals. In this album he displays a brilliant vocal performance. From powerful screams to deep growls and further on to clean singing. The vocals don’t have any flaws what so ever, and he uses the right type of vocals at the right time. When the music gets heavy his vocals goes extreme, and when the melodies kicks in his vocals turn into soothing singing. The guitars has not been one of the bands strongest perks, there is not much technicality since there are lots of heavy power chords and riffs based on pull-off and hammer-on techniques. Some riffs are catchy; some has a good groove and so on, but nothing highly impressive. But the guitars have a perfect and clear sound that makes them sound very good. One thing about metal bands is that most of the bassists are rarely heard. One reason would be that the guitars are too loud but not here. The bass is clearly heard and it adds a lot to the sound, the overall sound is very thick and robust thanks to the bass. But it stays behind the guitars and it only follows the rhythm sections so there are not standout performances from the bassist. In this particular album the keyboards were tuned up a bit. There are lots of different melodies created by the keyboards but how does it sound like? The keyboard just gives the songs an atmosphere and a little extra splashes of melody. There are no so called clear piano tunes or stuff like that, just strange atmospheric noise. The drums is nothing spectacular either, there is a mix of different beats, both fast and slow ones. Most drum parts are quite catchy and they are not highly technical, good drumming that creates a good versatility among the tracks.
Final words, a decent metal album. Some people will find this very good right from the start while others might hate it like the plague.
Soilworks’s music should be described as confusing. At one moment they are plain heavy and brutal and suddenly everything changes and they sound like a bunch of forgiving and caring softies. But
Natural Born Chaos still has some good stuff like a great sound production, a good variety of songs and excellent vocal work from Bjorn Strid. The flaws about this album is that the tracks can have a real turn-off effect, some you will be pissed when a bad*** track suddenly gets atmospheric and soothing, and of course, others will adored by it. The point is that the tracks sometimes are too oddly structured, for example. A heavy and fast song could remain like that while a slow and melodic song could remain slow and melodic. But when there is a mix between evil and good the track will eventually loose its flow. There are though some good tracks but most of them hardly stand out. Seriously, no track actually stands out. The scenario gets like this: One good song there, a bad one here, a slightly better one there and so on. Get this album if you want, it is after all melodic and aggressive at the same time but it will take some time get used to this album. In the end you will either like it or hate it.
Recommended Tracks
-- Black Star Deceiver (
Very catchy guitar work, aggressive sound, good flow but it has a cheesy chorus.)
-- Mindfields (
Also a catchy and heavy track and it has a good solid structure.)
-- As We Speak (
A ‘’calm’’ song with some cool keyboard effects, one of the better slow songs.)
This album balances between a 2 and 2.5, the final rating lands on a 2/5 (for now)
