Review Summary: The album where everything changes — maybe by coincidence, maybe by fate
Avatar is one of those bands that seem to spend years searching for their own identity until, suddenly, they stumble right into it. Black Waltz is that stumble: the exact moment when the Swedes stop being just another (mediocre?) name in melodic death metal and finally embrace an identity that is as theatrical as it is grotesque.
The birth of Johannes Eckerström’s clown persona — smeared makeup, sick grin, aggressive theatrics — is not just an aesthetic choice; it’s the trigger for a sonic transformation that makes this album feel like a rebirth. The dark circus Avatar arises and takes shape here, in a record that breathes sawdust, rust, and the crooked charisma that would become their trademark.
The shift in sound is obvious. If on earlier albums the band seemed chained to the logic of Swedish melodic death metal, here emerges a heavier, slower, groove-driven Avatar rather than one guided by calculated melodies. Black Waltz feels physical, pulsating, aggressive in a way that’s less technical and more instinctive. The riffs are drier, the rhythms heavier, and the whole record flows as if the band had finally taken the handbrake off. Is this the Avatar that always existed beneath the surface but only now found the courage — or chaos — to come out?
Tobias Lindell’s production is excellent and somehow both clean and dirty at the same time. I honestly have no idea how it manages to be both, but it is. Period. My only critique — and this is something that happens with 90% of metal bands (with the blessed exception of Iron Maiden and Overkill’s discographies) — is the bass, which is nearly inaudible most of the time.
The whole band gives everything on this album. Johannes Eckerström shows the first signs of his vocal versatility; John Alfredsson begins revealing the monstrous drummer he would become. There is always some small detail or personal twist he adds that makes all the difference in certain grooves or fills.
But then we arrive at my biggest lingering question in Avatar’s history: the arrival of guitarist Tim Öhrström.
The timing is so perfect it almost makes you want to believe he was the secret architect behind the band’s massive shift on this record. His style fits flawlessly into the groovier, more theatrical phase that begins here — more rhythmic riffs, less dependent on melody, more concerned with impact than ornamentation.
It would be easy to point at him as the one responsible for the shift. But the truth is murky. Maybe he was the spark. Maybe he was just the right person joining the band at the exact moment everything was already about to erupt. Black Waltz feels like such an inevitable turning point that the authorship of the change seems to dissolve somewhere between fate, collective intention, and coincidence.
The album isn’t perfect — but it is completely, absolutely Avatar. “Let It Burn” lights the fuse with violence and honestly feels made for headbanging and (believe it or not!) dancing. Yes, dancing! I dare you not to tap your foot during that bass–drum–vocal section.
“Smells Like a Freakshow” delivers the filthy theatricality that would define the band from this point on, and the title track works as a ritual initiating this new era. “Napalm” is dark and dragging. "Use your Tongue" is... damn, I can't describe it. Listen the song and make up your mind about it!
Everything on Black Waltz is bolder, more physical, more visceral. It’s less about polish and more about identity — and that’s exactly why Black Waltz has aged so well. What matters, in the end, is that Black Waltz marks the beginning of everything Avatar would become. A record that changes the course of their career, whether because of the arrival of a new guitarist, the birth of an iconic persona, or the sum of creative coincidences that finally aligned. Whether it was destiny or accident, I have no ideia. But this is where the new Avatar took its first breath.
Essential tracks:
• Let It Burn
• Smells Like a Freakshow
• Torn Apart
• Napalm
Verdict
Black Waltz isn’t just a great fourth album — it’s the Darwinian moment of Avatar: the (random) evolution of the band into something far better than they once were.
Whether Tim Öhrström pushed the band in this direction or simply stepped onto the train at the exact second it switched tracks, I honestly don’t know.
But the result is here: an album that not only marks a turning point in their discography, but also opens the door to everything Avatar would become afterward.
