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Soilwork: Natural born chaos
24/09/07 || The Duff
Getting into the melodic death metal scene with bands like In Flames and Dark Tranquillity, it wasn’t long before I picked up on these speed-thrashers with melody much in the Swedish style. I seem to remember reading some comment posted by a disgruntled fan about Fear Factory’s “Digimortal” being shit, and that Soilwork’s latest, “A Predator’s Portrait”, was a masterpiece far more worthy of a metaller’s attention. First checking out the track “Neurotica Rampage”, I later tracked down the whole album only to agree with the guy. A couple of years down the line I saw the album artwork to Soilwork’s next release in some magazine, and all of a sudden hunting down “Natural Born Chaos” became the most important thing in my life next to sliced bread and masturbating. When I finally managed to attain a copy, this thing probably became one of the most listened to cd’s in my collection, and yet it ain’t even that good – this is where Soilwork started to lose their way.
“Natural Born Chaos” was produced by Devin Townsend, and although the end product is commendable, this album lacks a lot of gusto; the guitars sound too crystalline, with no crunch and no cut-through. Also, as much as some of the choruses on “A Predator’s Portrait” may have been catchy, Soilwork took the sing-a-long approach to a whole new level on “Natural Born Chaos” – most of you will find this offensively catchy in the same vein as modern In Flames. One thing that helps me ignore this is that the guitars aren’t all that bad on “Natural Born Chaos”; combined with a more versatile Strid (his clean vocals have become far more identifiable as his own since “A Predator’s Portrait”, and his death metal work also sports a more guttural variety that sounds great), the simplified/more rock-infused riffing still makes for an enjoyable listen because it retains some degree of heaviness. A lot of the Gothenburg influence has been removed, and keyboards have jumped up into the Soilwork recipe from out of nowhere, but things remain nonetheless sufficiently interesting, making the catchy choruses pleasantly complementary.
Standouts include “Follow the Hollow” (for the aforementioned low-end grunting), “The Flameout” due to a really cool chorus, “The Bringer” ‘cos it’s heavy, “Black Star Deceiver” for the awesome guest-vocal appearance from the Dev, “Mercury Shadow” if only for the fuck-up lyric ‘We know how to spit or swallow’ (no, really, the song’s pretty good), and album closer “Song of the Damned” which avoids being commercial tripe (the chorus is about as drab as they get) due to its harboring some traces of the band’s old melodic death tendencies. Tracks that bring this album down include “As We Speak” for being one of the most accessible tracks the band has ever produced, and “No More Angels” for the really shit chorus; everything else not standout or let-down is pretty good, making the whole thing (including one of the best album covers I’ve ever come across, courtesy of Travis Smith) just slightly better than average.
6 warnings to all current In Flames detractors out of 10.
- Information
- Released: 2002
- Label: Nuclear Blast
- Website: www.soilwork.org
- Band
- Björn “Speed” Strid: vocals
- Peter Wichers: guitars
- Ola Flink: bass
- Ola Frenning: guitars
- Henry Ranta: drums
- Sven Karlsson: keyboards
- Tracklist
- 01. Follow the hollow
- 02. As we speak
- 03. The flameout
- 04. Natural born chaos
- 05. Mindfields
- 06. The bringer
- 07. Black star deceiver
- 08. Mercury Shadow
- 09. No more angels
- 10. Soilwork’s song of the damned
