Album: The Living Infinite
Year: 2013
Country: Sweden
Genre: Melodic Death Metal
I really haven’t heard anything bad so far of the releases I
have listened to so far this year. It seems Soilwork will continue this trend
with The Living Infinite, which is a large offering and supposedly the first
double album released by a melodic death metal band. For me Soilwork’s first 3
releases should be required listening for anyone interesting in experiencing
melodic death. Yeah, I’m one of those guys who holds up their early releases as
being great and writes off the rest. In fact you can say the band pulled an “In
Flames” and after those albums became
very mainstream and softened their approach. So its with much pleasure that I
say this is a much welcomed return to
form.
It’s interesting to note that neither of the guitarists were
in the band around the period of Steelbath Suicide to A Predator’s Portrait
which is funny because a lot of the riffing sounds exactly like those time
periods. In fact a lot of the material like Spectrum of Eternity, This
Momentary Bliss, and Realm of the Wasted sound like a mating between the
thrashiness of The Chainheart Machine and melody heavy (and clean vocals) of A
Predator’s Portrait fused together. The second CD is a bit more darker and
experimental with a number of tracks slowing down, the opening instrumental
Entering Aeons being quite doomy while Owl’s Predict, Oracles Stand Guard also
stays at a far slower doom type pace until it gets close to the end. But all
the riffs compiled from both CDs have one thing in common, they have quality
melodic riffs whether fast or slow. I can’t say there are any bad guitar parts
of the 20 songs on the release.
Bjorn Strid uses his screams to great affect and sounds more
like he did in his early days though sometimes going down to lower growls to
switch things up. His clean singing is really good and he has a strong voice.
I’m glad its not whiny or it could have spelled doom for the album. In fact his
cleans are so good that I would not mind if he had a project where he only sung
as Antidotes In Passing clearly shows he can go a whole song only singing and
do quite well.
The drumming by Dirk Verbeuren is incredibly well handled
and is very much a highlight and important part of making The Living Infinite
sound the way it does. He displays a lot of energy through the drumming and
shows major chops, its very fun stuff to listen to. Ola Fink sticks to playing along with the
guitars a lot though he is turned up just enough in the mix to be heard and in
some songs gets to the forefront like in Drowning With Silence where he gets a
sort of bass break during the bridge. Keyboards are also very tastefully done
by Sven Karlsson and never overstep their bounds.
Something I find
really cool about this double album is the fact that each CD seems to go
by so quickly since these are all quality songs. You would think at 20 tracks
it would drag somewhere along the way, maybe even on both discs at some point.
But instead before you know it each is over and my guess is its because its
such a good listening experience, you know the old saying “time flies when
you’re having fun” surely applies here. There is no filler, not a single throw
away track. It’s really impressive that Soilwork were able to create two albums
worth of music and keep it interesting all the way through. While disc one is
aggressive and has a lot of fast paced thrashing action the second is a little
more experimental and they seem to complement each other very well. While there
are a few slower tracks overall The Living Infinite reminds me heavily of their
earlier material and I couldn’t be more pleased at how it turned out.
Score: 9.5/10
Standout Tracks: Spectrum of Eternity, This Momentary Bliss,
Tongue, Vesta, Long Live the Misanthrope, Antidotes In Passing, The Living
Infinite II
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