Soilwork
“Natural Born Chaos”
(Nuclear Blast)
This band has an interesting back and forth sound, shifting from more traditional metal like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden to grinding death metal as found on early Earache releases. At times, it even takes in a small touch of the nu-metal vocal arrangements, and while this is only a minor flirtation, it could be indicative of mainstream crossover potential, which is why I bother mentioning it at all.
Soilwork are another element of the ever-expanding and never terribly disappointing Swedish metal scene. They’re a band that has received very little exposure in the States, and even though they’re not a group I’ll be listening to often, I can’t understand what deranged music industry forces cause bands like Soil’d, Linkin Park and others of their ilk to get all over MTVX and signed to the majors. It’s like choosing to cast Chris Tucker in the part of the hard-nosed yet conflicted street-smart cop over Denzel Washington. They say the record industry is nothing more than a business and all businesses are out for one thing, money, but why the hell does money only have to be made by pushing out the lowest common denominator in the whole musical world to kids in the suburbs?
