Soilwork studio action is more intense than ever

Soilwork singer Bjorn ‘Speed’ Strid says the band are proving more intense than ever as they record their tenth album.

The Swedish outfit entered the studio earlier this month with producer Jens Bogren, who oversaw their last two albums, The Living Infinite and 2010’s The Panic Broadcast.

Strid tells Metal Wani: “I feel it’s pretty fast-paced. It’s pretty intense – even more intense, I feel, than The Living Infinite. It might be a little bit more brutal, in a sense, even though that’s kind of a stupid word to use.

“We’re definitely not slowing down. It’s also a development from_ The Living Infinite_, just slightly faster, in a sense.”

He adds: “We’ve just been developing our sound, and it turned out to be pretty fast-paced and pretty technical, but yet pretty melodic and also atmospheric.”

Strid feels his band’s intensity is what separates them from contemporaries like In Flames and Dark Tranquillity. “There’s a lot of bands coming from the same genre as us and also from the Scandinavian scene that have been changing their sound,” he says. “I think they’ve been doing great.”

But he continues: “Just because we’re not slowing down doesn’t mean that we’re doing that as a conscious decision – ‘Everybody else is slowing down, let’s make brutal music again.’ It’s not really our intention. It’s more what we want to do right now.”

And he refutes the suggestion that their latest material is a nostalgia trip. “It’s also a development,” he argues. “Even though it’s brutal and fast, it’s in a different way nowadays. It’s more interesting, and we’ve grown as songwriters as well.”

Soilwork are also preparing their first live DVD – Live In The Heart Of Helsinki, recorded last year, will be released on March 16.