After
Soilwork's last cd
Natural Born Chaos, I was wondering where they would go with this new album
Figure Number Five.
Natural Born Chaos had a sound that combined great guitar riffs with vocals that sometime would growl and sometimes sing the choruses with a clean voice. There were great solos and atmospheric keyboards that added a lot to the overall picture. Could
Soilwork get even better on their new album?
Starting out with the albums first track
Rejection Role, we start out with a nice guitar riff that flows right out of your speakers with a very straight-ahead feeling. This sounds like radio-friendly death metal if that isn't a contradiction in terms.
Overall, the guitars are what I like best on this cd. On the 40 minutes of this cd, we get some very tasty riffs. They are generally less complex than on
Natural Born Chaos but that doesn't make them less catchy; on the contraty. However, there aren't really any riffs that I remember when I stop the cd. The riff from the title-track is an exception with a few others. Hmmm, easy-listening death metal???
Anyways, when it comes to soloing, guitarists
Ola Frenning and
Peter Wichers form a great duo as the solos are very well composed and show great musicianship.
The vocals of
Bjorn Strid are quite versatile. As on
Natural Born Chaos we have parts with clean singing, an area that
Soilwork has emphasized even more on this cd. The growling is of course there too; it varies from time to time. In title-track
Figure Number Five we get a very deep growling chorus that is very aggresive. A shame that there isn't more of this on the cd... Mostly the choruses are sung with a clean voice while the verses have growling vocals. From time to time there are some effects on the vocals. It is used in the right places and not too often.
The drums are good but one of the cymbals sounds very strange to me. It sounds as if it was recorded to loudly and therefore distorts. Anybody else hears this? Bugs the hell out of me.
The keyboards are very atmospheric and mostly in the background. I would have liked them to have played a bigger role here since the parts that are there are great. Keyboarder
Sven Karlsson previously played with
Evergrey so I know that he plays really well!
Soilwork should think about letting him play a bigger role in the future. When listening to the cd in headphones there are some nice stereo effects. This is mostly strange keyboard sounds but sometimes also a guitar is panned around in the stereo picture.
Best songs on the cd are
Figure Number Five and
The Mindmaker. On
Figure Number Five the first riff is simple but memorable and easily recognizable. The vocals are brutal all the way. The chorus gives me an evil and dangerous look as I sing (growl) along. Best track on the album.
The Mindmaker is less brutal but still heavier than many other songs on the cd. Again we have a great riff. The chorus is here sung with clean vocals.
A track like
Departure Plan is a disappointment. A slow song with the guitars playing much of the same thing all through the song.
We still have aggression here but it's just the same boring chorus all through the song. Not even the nice solo can make this song interesting.
The next song
Cranking the Sirens is a bit better but still nothing memorable.
Overall some catchy choruses and great riffs but I don't feel that there are songs here that will grow anymore on me. That is a big minus in my book. I miss something deeper in the songs. Overall the cd is good but I can't help getting a "radio-feeling" when I hear it. With that I mean songs that sound catchy on first listen but don't have more to offer on closer listening. This may sound very harsh and the reasons why I still give the album the quite high rating are all the good things about the album. Nobody can deny that
Soilwork are a world-class band. The guitarists are great, the singer sings as if he means what he is singing (a very important part) and the production is great. The cd is a bit too straight-ahead but the aggression and the musicianship is still there. Compared to their last cd, we have a more straightforward sound. Less complex and more anonumous riffs. If you liked the direction
Soilwork took with their last cd
Natural Born Chaos, get this cd because that is a step further in that direction.
Written by
Tajs Sunday, July 6, 2003
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