Soilwork have got the most consistent discography of all the Gothenburg style bands. With possibly Dark Tranquility as the only competition. My favourite records of theirs are Natural Born Chaos, Stabbing the Drama and The Panic Broadcast.
For me Dark Tranquillity has a more consistent discography than Soilwork. That's not to say that Soilwork is a mediocre band, by no means. A Predator's Portrait and Natural Born Chaos are masterpieces.
I've been championing Soilwork for a while. Not only they make the Melodeath-infused-with-Alternative-Rock stuff better than In Flames but also, as shown even since the phenomenal Living Infinite, can combine their traditional sound with Progressive Metal avoiding to sound like an Edge Of Sanity or Insomnium clone. And also, Bjorn Strid people. What a great frontman. His growls may be nothing special but he crushes everybody when it comes to clean vocals. I hope this album allows them to step out of the shadow of the Gothemburg trio and a few other bands who as of late are more focused on their image rather than their music, you already know who they are. Great vid as always, Trenches!
@@MetalTrenches I remember there was a friendly competition between Soilwork and In Flames back around Figure Number Five era. Those were some great times with the snow/skateboard subculture making its way into metal here in Europe and making it all cool and that for us. While In Flames became a parody of themselves, Soilwork continue to make awesome music and knowing how hardy and consistent these Swedes can be, we're in for many more to come from them.
@@MetalTrenches I agree because In Flames is extremely hit or miss. I absolutely love Jester Race, Whoracle, Colony, and Clayman, those are some of my all-time favorite albums. I think their albums from Reroute to Remain to A Sense of Purpose were pretty solid, but Sounds of a Playground Fading is where they started falling off for me. Siren Charms and Battles were both really bad albums, and I The Mask has a few good songs but it's mediocre IMO. I hope their album sticks to the heavier direction of their two newer singles.
I would place "Verkligheten" at Tier S. There's no bad track on it. The overall sound and melodies were/are something new for me even as for Soilwork's standards. Moreover, this album gives me a vibe of positive/optimistic energy or something like that which is quite unique in this genre or in heavier metal styles.
I agree. The ebb and flow of each song fits perfectly into the next, being brutal at some parts and straight up majestic at the rest. Arrival is an absolute banger, the outro of bleeder despoiler is gorgeous which goes into that nasty intro riff of full moon shoals, then going into the beautiful intro to the nurturing glance, I can go on and on. No, it doesn’t do anything super crazily ambitious, but it’s such a cohesive, majestic album.
One of my alltime favourites. Like you said, they really don't have a single bad album. My ranking would be S - Natural Born Chaos, Stabbing the Drama, Figure Number Five, The Living Infinite A - A Predator's Portrait, The Panic Broadcast, The Chainheart Machine, Verkligheten B - Steelbath Suicide, The Ride Majestic C - Sworn to a Great Divide
Thank you! I’ve been having the best time watching your videos as Im going through each bands discography. I think the only change I’d have made is switching around Figure No 5 and The Living Infinite but both are fantastic records that deserve to be at the top of the ranking.
Favorite band since I got into them back in 2003ish. A Predator's Portrait is still my favorite album of all time. There's just nothing really like it and I still discover little things I never noticed about the playing and production every time I listen to it. Most people don't realize this, but Whisper clocks in longer than their first album, so it's odd they consider it an EP. I get that they have one super long song in it and it's only 5 tracks, and that probably would be their justification, but to me it's an LP. Same way I consider Living Infinite parts I and II separate albums, and Death Resonance is basically part III (5 songs were recorded during those same sessions).
It's not even fair how good A Predator's Portrait is. Soilwork has plenty of good music, but this one hits a peak that music in general rarely reaches for me. Not sure what kind of witchcraft they used to achieve it, but I'm glad they did. It's well known that Opeth recorded their classic Blackwater Park in the same studio at the same time as APP, so there was clearly something in the air right then and there.
Wow. "Tongue" jazz/triumphant solo and 70s organ on "Whispers and Lights" are my favourite things on the living infinite. I just can't understand the whole lore of soilwork, but i love this album since it's release date.
Stabbing the Drama introduced me to the band and I'll never not love that song. Bjorn's attitude in the vocal delivery along with the riffs make it top tier
I'm pretty much on board with you for most of this. The first five albums are killer, then it gets a little hit & miss, but never awful. I haven't been very impressed with the 3 tracks I've heard from the new album. Too much clean singing and a bit sappy for my taste, but I'll give it a fair listen Friday. My tier is: S: The Chainheart Machine, A Predator's Portrait, Natural Born Chaos A: Steelbath Suicide, Figure Number Five B: The Living Infinite, The Ride Majestic, Stabbing the Drama C: The Panic Broadcast, Sworn to a Great Divide, Verkligheten
I'd rank their albums as follows: S: The Chainheart Machine, A Predator's Portrait, Natural Born Chaos, The Living Infinite A: Steelbath Suicide, Stabbing the Drama, The Ride Majestic, Overgivenheten B: Figure, Number Five, The Panic Broadcast, Verkligheten B-: Sworn to a Great Divide I've loved this band since discovering Stabbing The Drama at an FYE store in 2005. I enjoy everything they've put out.
Death Resonance shoulda been highlighted its a great few songs and I know its not a fully unique album. but dam the songs they have on here are gnarly technique .
I like your shirt bro! My band Alions almost played with them at the Jewel in Manchester NH, but they had to back out for some reason. They are sick though.
S: Natural Born Chaos, The Living Infinite, The Predator's Portrait A: Stabbing the Drama, The Ride Majestic, Chainheart Machine B: Steelbath Suicide, Verkligheten, The Panic Broadcast C: Figure Number Five D: Sworn to a Great Divide Soilwork is a pretty consistent band for the most part. Can't wait to listen to their new album!
Here would be my tier-ranking for Soilwork. I can't wait to give their new album Overgivenheten a listen when it comes out Friday. S - Figure Number Five, Stabbing the Drama A - The Chainheart Machine, Natural Born Chaos, The Panic Broadcast, The Ride Majestic B - Steelbath Suicide, A Predator's Portrait, Sworn to a Great Divide, The Living Infinite C - Verkligheten
A Predator's Portrait - probably their best :) Love the soloing, lyrics, lead harmonies, details. This is why I have to clarify, there is no song named "The Avenger Stalker" :D (cool title nonetheless). In terms of musical quality, I think only The Chainheart Machine really rivals it. And some of the newer progressive stuff also gets to that level. Having said that, I enjoy basically their entire discography (not having gotten into some of the newer stuff) and it is really diverse. Thanks for covering Soilwork and sharing your thoughts! \m/
Soilwork is what got me into the Melodic Death Metal / Melodic Metalcore band Dreamshade. In my opinion then, they pioneered a *type* of Melodeath sound! Love ‘em!
Its funny to hear this take on their early stuff. I imagine a lot of my love for that particular period of metal, these albums in particular, come from the fact that those were the years I was really getting into metal. Razorlives is in fact that got me into metal.
I found a CD in like 2003 called Point Break Vol 1 (there's no Vol 2 lol), I found so many bands from that album, Soulwork, Avenged Sevenfold, Thrice, it was awesome. Follow the Hollow was the Soulwork track, awesome nu metally stuff
Thanks for ranking, truly speaking Soilwork is one of band which i totally missed, now i started listening from very beginning and i confirmed my opinion that from melodic DM discographhies i prefer 1-3 first albums. Starting from ca. 4th recording music turns to be too clear, sophisticated. I prefer raw, pure, wild, straightforward debuts, sophomores from DT, IF, Soilwork and others.
Their first two are definitely my favorites, Natural Born Chaos I find to be quite overrated and the Ride Majestic is my favorite since the early 00's. A Whisp of the Atlantic EP was really good and am looking forward to their new one. Great list.
Very accurate evaluation man! Figure no 5 fell off from S to B for me in time but gotta say you are on point with all the rest Also Verkligheten quite obiously is half-baked, its overall quality drops sharply half-way through.
Omethi and Act of Denial are great projects Bjorn is also in. And the songs he done with I Legion are fantastic as well... That man has some of the best pipes in the game
The first 3 albums are great but you can't beat the creativity of Natural Born Chaos and Figure Number Five, the catchy choruses without sounding bad like modern In Flames is unmatched.
I'm much more in agreement with you on this list compared to Arch Enemy. Biggest difference is I would put Figure number 5 at B tier at best. And TBH, I don't know how many albums past that one I listened to all the way through since I got bored with the band at that point. Definitely looks like I should check out the living infinite at least.
S - Figure Number Five, Stabbing the Drama, A Predator's Portrait A - The Ride Majestic, The Living Infinite B - Natural Born Chaos, Sworn to a Great Divide C - Verkligheten, The Panic Broadcast As for the newest album i would probably put it somewhere near B or a low A, it's better than Verkligheten but only slightly.
It's hard to rank Soilwork because as you said, none of the albums are even close to bad (Great Divide is definitely at the bottom though). I'd personally rank Ride Majestic higher than Living Infinite as I feel like it accomplishes all the same cool stuff in half the runtime, and I'd be lying if I said Stabbing wasn't an S tier one for me, but honestly you really can't go wrong with any of these.
Ride Majestic A for me or at least a B. And Living Infinte an S.. Great review, saw them live in Sydney 2022, worth the 4 hour drive, but the crowd could have been bigger. Still, every album had something worth listening to. 😊🤘
I also think "The Chainheart Machine" is their best album and masterpiece. That's actually the album that really got me into metal back then. I went to the store to buy the new RATM album (The Battle of Los Angeles) and in the shop, there were a couple of headphones which you could use to listen to the newest releases. And one of these new releases was The Chainheart Machine. I put the headphones on, pressed play, and it blew my f'king mind. It changed my life forever, I guess ? Unfortunately, I don't listen to Soilwork any more because I don't like the direction they chose for the band and I don't like the albums released after Sworn to a Great Divide. Side note : Next month, I'll go to what would have been "the ultimate melodeath gig" back in the early 2000's : Soilwork + In Flames + Arch Enemy. Unfortunately, we're in 2024 and I don't listen to Soilwork or In Flames any more. And they're unlikely to play their older stuff. Still love Arch Enemy though.
I agree 1000% with Steelbath Suicide & Chainheart Machine being their best albums, Steelbath being criminally underrated. Their more modern stuff is accessible to get your foot into the door if you're not a metal fan, but I didn't enjoy their transition into more mainstream less aggressive style. Couldn't bring myself to listen to the last 2 albums (same with In Flames)
A Whisp of the Atlantic is actually the first “album” I listened to by Soilwork. I stumbled upon Death Diviner on a random Spotify playlist, and then became obsessed with the title track. I’ve personally be jamming their latest album nonstop for weeks. Working my way through some of their other work as well, but the prog sound connects with me the most.
Agree that Soilwork peaked early. They were fucking untouchable back with Wichers + Frenning on guitar and Ranta on drums. In some ways they reminded me of Deep Purple's MK II era. The current era with David Andersson is cool, but slightly more inconsistent for me. However it sounds like what they're doing now makes them happy, so respect and power to them for that! Soilwork has always been way above average regardless of line-up. My tier list would be: S - A Predator's Portrait, The Chainheart Machine, Natural Born Chaos A - The Panic Broadcast, Stabbing the Drama B - The Living Infinite, Figure Number Five, Steelbath Suicide, The Ride Majestic C - Sworn to a Great Divide, Övergivenheten (early days, could move up) D - Verkligheten P.S. Soilwork if you read this, you know you've got a couple of MONSTER composers in Sylvain and Sven, please give them more songs
I'll listen to all of Overgivenheten once my exams are over the replacement cable for my earphones arrives, but so far, Overgivenheten and the second track (sorry. Just don't remember the title) are sick as fuck
I have never fully dived into Soilworks catalogue thoroughly, I had the panic broadcast and thought 2 lives of reckoning is a sick track, also caught them supporting Sepultura here in the uk and they were good, just something about them has never fully pulled me in, will have to check out more, I'm not so keen on there clean vocals though
YOU MADE MY DAY ONCE AGAIN GOOD SIR😂😂😎😎we almost have the same exact tier ranking. I’d put Living Infinite in S and Figure in A. The EP blew my fucking mind, definitely one of the best things to come out of 2020 lmao
I stopped listening to Soilwork after high school. Nerve and Stabbing the Drama were good tracks but I felt they were going in a more mainstream rock direction. After watching your list, I gave The Living Infinite a listen. There are some killer songs on there. Some better then others but it is a solid double album. Thanks man.
S tier: A Predator’s Portrait, Natural Born Chaos, Chainheart Machine, Steelbath Suicide A tier: The Living Infinite, Stabbing The Drama B tier: Figure Number Five, The Panic Broadcast B- tier: Övergivenheten, The Ride Majestic C tier: Verkligheten, Sworn To A Great Divide I was very tempted to put STD at S cuz I’ve seen them live 3 times during that album cycle and last time was when Peter left sadly and the current guy David Andersson played as a live guitarist. But low A it is!
@@captweirdbeard I had to put some thought on this really! The S tier especially how to arrange them. The only reason I put APP and NBC over TCM is the clean vocals. Musically they’re both simpler in a sense especially lead work wise but man those clean vocals add something! Thanks man!
@@SatanBled lol I get it. Depending on my mood that day, TCM, APP or NBC could all claim the top spot. I do find that APP most regularly occupies that spot so it's probably #1 overall, but all 3 of them are flawless honestly.
Been a huge fan of Soilwork since first hearing Stabbing the Drama. It might be a hot take but since I prefer more melodic metal songs with clean vocals, my preference is very different. I actually won’t rank the first two albums since I haven’t listened to either the whole way through, but I will say that Spirits of a Future Sun is an absolute banger. Also, I consistently enjoy all their demos and unreleased/bonus tracks (Wherever Thorns May Grow and My Nerves, Your Everyday Took are actually my favourite songs of theirs.) Also these measures are based on how consistently good I feel the albums are (though I will mention standout songs). Since I haven’t heard the new one enough yet, I will withold Judgement on it too. S: Natural Born Chaos, The Panic Broadcast, The Living Infinite, Verkligheten A: Predator’s Portrait, Stabbing the Drama, The Ride Majestic B: Figure Number Five C: Sword to a Great Divide As a bonus to this: Light the Torch, Stabbing the Drama and Whirl of Pain are all S tier songs for me.
One of my favorite bands and one of my gateways into more extreme metal. I bought STD when it came out after I heard Nerve and goddamn my 14 year old self loved that album. I can't really say I disagree with much of this list. It's almost identical to where I would rank this discography.
COMPLETELY agree with your comments on Living Infinite, to me it’s actually underrated. It’s a modern day classic. Also agree with Ride Majestic, it’s the only album of theirs that’s never connected with me. And yes, people cannot sleep on A Whisp of the Atlantic! The title track alone brings me near tears still
To be honest with you, I meet Soilwork when The Chainheart Machine, was their last at the moment. I did become very interested in the band so I got Steelbath Suicide and a bit later Predator. But when Natural Born Chaos came, I would said it was good, but not what i was looking for. I did hear Fiigure #5 thanks to a Friend of mine and the same, was good but not interested in that sound. And that was all about Soilwork for me, I did never listened any of their later albums, not even feel curious about it. But now that Im more open to Melodic Metalcore maybe I would take a look what I was missing about this band all these years.
Been listening to Soilwork since early 2000's, with Predator's Portrait being my first album I've heard. Soilwork is deffinitely one of my all time stars when it comoes to metal music - here's my list: S TIER: Natural Born Chaos The Ride Majestic A TIER: Figure Number Five Stabbing the Drama A Predator's Portrait B TIER: The Panic Broadcast Sworn to a Great Divide Steelbath Suicide * The Chainheart Machine * ( * both albums I would rank higher, if they had a better sound/production ) C TIER: Verkligheten The Living Infinite D TIER Övergivenheten ( this just straight out doesn't sound like Soilwork at all to me lol ) Much of the newer stuff would rank much higher, but I really HATE the trend of bands adding so much (modern) blast-beat, especially into passages/arrangements, where it would sound 1000% better without it. Verkligheten would be easily an A tier, maybe even S Tier, because there are so many wonderfully wondrous harmonies and melodies, all destroyed by that fucking drumming onany. Same with The Living Infinite, although just solid A Tier
Figure Number Five is so streamlined that I just feel lukewarm on it even to this day, it would be better with a little more going on woth the riffs and song structures. I agree with you on Stabbing the Drama when it came out, it's grown on me but just not enough good melodies, especially on guitar. It felt like they were leaning too far towards gaining a nu-metal audience, but I can appreciate some of it now. The worst part of Sworn is the production, IMO. So thin and tinny, but the album has a string of good songs at the end.
Soilwork had been remarkably consistent. I'm not gonna rank them because that's too difficult. I would just say a little bit about each... Steelbath suicide- A good record but, unfortunately a one trick pony. If you like pure At the Gate's worship then you're going to love this. The production is not bad but not great. This is a very raw album. To me this is Soilwork, in the making. Chain heart machine- The same trick we got the last album but a whole hell of a lot better. This is one of my favorite soilwork albums despite the fact that it is 1 dimensional. The songs are just so damn good. The title track, generation speed kill, Million flame and room number 99 are worth the price of admission alone. If you're looking for the more aggressive side of melodic death metal you can't go wrong with this. A predator's portrait- The very 1st album I bought from soil work. Although, I heard the chain heart machine 1st. I remember buying this alongside The Haunted's made me do it. This is a transitional album. The problem I have with it is it's kind of patchy. I would say half the songs are really good and push their sound further. Examples would be like the average stalker, needle fest and grand failure anthem. Other songs like bastard chain, Are just kind of there and were better on the chain heart machine. A good record but a very inconsistent one. But the good songs are great. The other songs are just there. This is kind of par for the course for a transitional album. Natural born chaos- Soilwork attempting to go the route of inflames without completely abandoning what they are. This is Speed strids fully realizing his clean singing potential. I like this a lot more back in 2002. All the songs are for the most part good. This album has a certain hokeyness to it that I'm not a huge fan of. It's almost like some of the bad elements of metal core started to rub off on them. Still a great album through-and-through. This is soil works black album even though it happens to be white. Lol Figure number 5- I didn't like this at all back in 2003. But after revisiting it... Yeah, it's a good album. I think this album is a bit more streamlined than the last one and is more or less there most commercial sounding one. With the explosion of metal core and inflames, Soilwork said Hey what about us? Even though it sounds different from all their previous work it still sounds like Soilwork. Harsh vocals are a little more deeper than in the past. Clean still sound great. These songs seem to be more streamblind where everything kind of counts. This is soilworks black album part 2, But I would much rather hear this than the actual black album. Stabbing the drama- My least favorite soil work album, by far. Only 3 songs actually stuck with me. The title track, weapon of vanity, And the bonus track wherever thorns may grow. Since this is actually a bonus track, in reality, only 2 songs on the whole album are good. Download those 3 songs and that's it. One of only 2 bad records. This feels like soilwork trying to do metal core. Which makes no sense because they predate it. Sworn to a great divide- This is a lot of people's least favorite. I don't know why. To me, this is about 2/3 good. The big problem I have with it is the really thin shitty guitar production. It is absolutely a nightmare and takes away from the enjoyment of the songs that are actually good. So much so that I don't go back to listen to this record even though 2/3 of the songs are good because of the really bad guitar tone. It's that off putting! I don't know why this tone was chosen. The bad songs on this record still have that metal core hangover vibe. That's a whole this album is still good. Guitar tone is fucking terrible though! Jesus! The panic broadcast- Absolutely great opener. This album is the same as the last in terms of quality of songs. The production is much better this time around although that kind of crappy guitar tone still lingers. But it's not enough to make me not listen to the album this time around. The bad songs kind of have the same metal core type vibe of the last record. This is more or less sworn to a great divide part 2 with a better guitar tone and somewhat stronger songwriting with blues and rock influences creeping their way in, but in a good way. The living infinite- A double album full of the best stuff the soilwork has made to date. Double albums are really hard to pull off and soil work absolutely did it! Out of the 20 songs on this thing, I only dislike 3. Song's number 2 on both disks I have not listened to more than once. It's kind of funny that both song number two's are our complete ass. The 3rd song that sucks is owls stand guard, oracles can go fuck off or whatever the hell this thing is called. I would say this album is the best representation of soil work. I like the new progressive elements coming in here. They seem to have ditched the metal core vibe for something more along the lines of a fleshed out version of melodic death metal. I would call this progressive melodic death metal. With a great balance between the 2. This is a classic record. I would put this right next to the chain heart machine even though the 2 sound vastly different. I enjoy them the same. The ride Majestic- This seems like a slightly more somber version of the last album. Still this is another great album! This is actually a little more streamlined here. Don't understand why anybody wouldn't like this record. It's basically a streamlined Version of the living infinite without losing what made that album great. Father and son watching the world go down is an awesome closer. Just a hair under the living infinite. Ver- Very disappointed. After 3 killer singles. There is absolutely nothing on this album that connects with me. Is the arrival, Full moon shoals, staffagel are great. The rest is just kind of there. This would have been a great 3 song EP. This is the 2nd worst soil work album for me. But I can't really complain. They've never really sucked and they've been on quite a roll until now. Over- I haven't heard the whole thing yet. Just the title track. But it's awesome! I hope the rest of this album is of this quality, Unlike the last record. Which pulled the woll over my eyes after releasing 3 great songs in a row. It comes out in a couple of days so I'll hear the whole thing then. Soilwork is a great band, With tons of great albums that all sound different from each other. This is how you evolve without changing who you are fundamentally. In flames needs to take some notes from soilwork.
@@MetalTrenches no problem. Been listening to soil work since 1999. This band has been criminally underrated. They are everything that inflames isn't. I don't understand how speed strid is not more popular in the metal community over a gimp like Anders Friden. Even on inflames classic stuff Anders is, by far, the weakest link. He is the equivalent to Lars Ulrich, only on vocals. Soil work should be the band that people talk about and when it comes to melodic death metal evolving. Unfortunately, they actually evolve instead of devolve so that's why they don't get much shine. It's much easier to wine like Korn and do open note chugga chugga and call that progress; Then to incorporate progressive rock, blues folk into your sound and actually get better in vocals as time goes on. Inflames is the Swedish Metallica, Only clueless. I saw Metallica in 1996. On the load tour. Even then, They were not cutting out songs like master of puppets to make room for Ronnie. Even they knew where their bread was buttered. So they did not play More than 5 load songs the entire night. Although it got worse with reload. My friend actually saw them do a kill/ride medley, butchering most of the songs off the 1st 2 records and a salsa rendition of the 4 horsemen, in 1997 Yeah. He was pissed. But that's as clueless as Metallica got. Inflames have been stuffing the set list with crap that nobody wants to hear with maybe "only for the weak" as the only pre reroute song. The last time I seen them was on the come clarity tour. And I really only went because Nevermore was opening. And they were fresh off "this godless endeavor". It looks like inflames is finally getting it as they are adding more older songs to the set list and releasing new material that isn't completely terrible. I didn't mean to make this about inflames; but soil work is just a million times better and I don't understand why in flames is so loved. Actually I do understand it, I just don't like it. Dumbing it down John Davis style isn't exactly my cup of tea.
This is extremely late, but i'm actually going to talk about the newest soil work album. To me this is another great record. After their progressive EP's ; This sounds like a more streamlined version of that. This album is getting criticism for adding a lot more progressive elements. And some of our going as far as to say that there isn't much melodic death metal here. I don't know what record they are hearing. There are tons of melodic death metal on here it's just got a whole lot Of progressive metal/rock wallpaper on it. This album will switch genre's sometimes in the same song and tie it in seemlessly. This album has only one song I don't like. Not because it's bad, but there are other songs on it which do the exact same thing. That song would be... this godless universe. If you trim that, Put the instrumentals in with the song instead of calling it their own thing. Because none of these instrumentals are call of the Kathulu, they are very short. And get rid of the chorus that doesn't fit on song number two. Not the key section. The thing that comes immediately after it. It sounds more upbeat than the rest of the song , but not enough to actually be a powerful chorus. It's just there and doesn't really fit. Outside of that, everything here is great. Yes the progressive rock/ night flight orchestra stuff is more pronounced here; but I don't see that is a bad thing. I can see people saying that this is doing what the living infinite was doing. But doesn't quite grab your attention as much as that album. I understand that, but the living infinite has some progressive touches. Whereas this album sometimes swims in the progressive pool a lot more. The second song is basically full on prog rock. This album is a much better album than the last one. And it stands out amongst soil works very impressive discography. Unless you absolutely hate progressive rock I don't understand why anyone would dislike this. I think people are blowing smoke up inflames ass; Just because they released something that isn't terrible. Meanwhile , soilwork have been on a over quarter of a century run with only two duds in the mix. And even those bad albums have a couple of good songs and are nowhere near the level of risk or saint anger. Nor are those bad albums a straight up identity crisis. They are just Not the best soil work stuff. I actually feel bad for soil work because they have just been doing a tremendous Job over the years and our complete model of consistency. Yet bands like inflames and arch enemy who haven't released much good material as of late are getting much more shine because of their gimmick. Arch enemy for having two hot chicks in a row front the band. And in flames for being the Metallica of swedished death metal, AKA Living off of accomplishments over 20 years ago. This is another stellar record. If you hear a song on this album , you will know it is from the album. This is catchy, proggy melodic death metal. I am getting older, but soilwork is not. They are aging like Paul Rudd. Whereas in flames has aged like bridget fonda.
We have very very very different rankings on Soilwork albums; though I think this is a case of me being the weird one moreso than you having odd picks. I really don't see the hype around Natural Born Chaos and would slot it in around B- tier, and I actually do think Soilwork have some bad albums - Figure Number Five, Stabbing The Drama, and Sworn To A Great Divide are D tier with StD (what an unfortunate acronym) potentially being an F. I really don't like anything about Stabbing The Drama. The Living Infinite belongs in S, and the last 3 albums are all like super high B bordering on A for me. Which, I think means I think Soilwork isn't a great rock band and I prefer it when they go for more artsy-fartsy high concept stuff. I know that lands me in the minority though.
I think Stabbing the Drama flows the best of all their albums. The double album is a masterpiece. Hard to beat anything from Predators and before though
Exile is pretty much the proof that bad production/sound CAN'T kill good music. Like in the old days of analogue recording (compared to music produced now) a good song is still a good song regardless of the recording. ^^
Soilwork destroys in flames all day. In addition to your comments of the decline from ff5 to stabbing the drama, they also went from making their most keyboard dominated album with ff5 to stabbing the drama the keyboards being diminished to almost non-existent and when they do show up, they're much lower in the mix. I haven't been able to get into anything after that. The first 5 albums are rad. I can't decide a best one but chain heart is the only one where i really loved the screams.
I didnt think Soilwork have any weak or super weak albums, they are pretty consistent. It's one of those bands they you love them or hate. The double album is pretty sick. Great video.
@@Goryptor there is some metal people who hate the singing they do and some of their hooks in songs. Some people just like straight deathmetal heaviness. Soilwork writes songs.
I also stopped listening to the band when Stabbing the Darama came out. You can note that that's in the era when these bands were touring with American bands at the time and record labels were pushing all these bands to cross-pollinate the sound and fan base (and thus increase capitol) and it just failed so hard for me.
S+ - A Predator's Portrait S - The Ride Majestic, Chainheart Machine A - pretty much every other album . . . F - Sworn to a great divide.... (even though it has my favorite Soilwork song)
I really adore everything from S and A tier. B tier is fine. C tier has fine moment. I personally hate Soilworks more metalcore-ish stuff (except few tracks, but i dont like metalcore in general). Im so glad that last two albums are really cool. High expectations for the new one. S: The Predator's Portrait, Steelbath Suicide, Chainheart Machine A: Verkligheten, Natural Born Chaos, The Ride Majestic B: The Living Infinite C: The Panic Broadcast, Figure Number Five D: Stabbing the Drama, Sworn to a Great Divide
Stabbing the Drama is my fav Soilwork LP. It was the second one that I ever heard, with the first being NBC (witch I also love). So to me it felt like a natural progression. I have not heard the new one yet so I cant speak on that one but while still good, I do not like any of the bands other albums nearly as much as those two. I am likely in the minority here but its just my opinion and it occurs to me that it is largely based in the Mere-exposure effect.
Figure No.5 at S tier..... hmmmm.... I definitely dropped off a bit with that one. Would definitely rate Natural Born Chaos as S tier myself. It was the first album of theirs I heard and it blows Fig No.5 out of the water! I also enjoyed Ride Majestic and their last album a lot more than you apparently, hahahaha! I'm glad The Living Infinite is getting the recognition it deserves here, as I find that to be the underrated gem in their discography
The first four albums are great, with Figure Number Five they started to get a little generic in my opinion. I think Stabbing the Drama and Sworn… are actually pretty boring ( Not bad but not good either ). From The Panic Broadcast onwards I actually enjoyed every output ( solid B Tier albums ). Pretty interested in the new one which will arrive tomorrow - the singles were promising.
S Natural born, Stabbing, Figure, A Whisp A Sworn, The Panic, The ride B Steelbath, Chainheart and Predator Zzz Verkligheten worst album by a long shot. Drumming is all blast beats and music is so processed
What makes soilwork death metal? The Hard vocals and the occasional blast beats? to me I've never really seen them as a death metal band. His voice isn't really deathaaaaahhhh.
There’s only one consistency with soilwork is reviewer inconsistency or the genera-listening scene. Too heavy, not heavy enough, EP’s to long, EP’s to cluttered, I want to stab myself in the eye ballZ after all the criticism after EVERY EP It’s remarkable and sad how the human brain works judging the sound coming out of a ever changing band is pointless. This new one is something different, they’re is more emotions and complexed lyrics , the hooks and heavy planned out. This maybe the metal EP of the year, but go ahead and shit on it, nothing new from the elites….
@@MetalTrenches you’re the one categorizing every EP, and what I was saying was not directed at you. It’s just all the back lash they got after their third EP, it put a sour taste in my mouth hearing complaining about how it was not as heavy as the first two from the metal scene. You complained that you lost interest in the middle and it didn’t live up to your expectations…of progressive metal, opinions are like azz holes everyone’s got one. Cheers friend.
I like your videos, but if it's not the old (old-fashioned) Gothenburg sound then you're basically devaluing them with a few exceptions. Unfortunately, this is no longer an objective review suitable for the masses. Rather, it reflects your purely personal taste in a
MORE Melodic Death Metal Tier Lists: ruclips.net/video/3qx8dBnFKxk/видео.html
Soilwork pretty much invented what blew up as American metalcore with harsh vocals for songs but with clean singing choruses
I don't know if they were more or less influential on metalcore, but Fear Factory already had that verse/chorus dynamic on their debut album in 1992.
Soilwork have got the most consistent discography of all the Gothenburg style bands. With possibly Dark Tranquility as the only competition. My favourite records of theirs are Natural Born Chaos, Stabbing the Drama and The Panic Broadcast.
Was about the comment with the same point about Soilwork and DT.
For me Dark Tranquillity has a more consistent discography than Soilwork. That's not to say that Soilwork is a mediocre band, by no means. A Predator's Portrait and Natural Born Chaos are masterpieces.
soilwork is such an incredibly consistent band, love basically all their albums save for sworn. the ride majestic is probably my favorite though.
same!
Soilwork probably one of the most underrated bands.
Björn Strid is srsly like in my opinion the best singer ever.
Rob Halford rates him. That's enough for me.
I've been championing Soilwork for a while. Not only they make the Melodeath-infused-with-Alternative-Rock stuff better than In Flames but also, as shown even since the phenomenal Living Infinite, can combine their traditional sound with Progressive Metal avoiding to sound like an Edge Of Sanity or Insomnium clone. And also, Bjorn Strid people. What a great frontman. His growls may be nothing special but he crushes everybody when it comes to clean vocals.
I hope this album allows them to step out of the shadow of the Gothemburg trio and a few other bands who as of late are more focused on their image rather than their music, you already know who they are.
Great vid as always, Trenches!
His clean vocals are protected by UNESCO as one of the landmarks in Swedish culture. Therefore they haven't changed in 20 years.
Definitely a stronger discography as a whole than In Flames
@@MetalTrenches I remember there was a friendly competition between Soilwork and In Flames back around Figure Number Five era. Those were some great times with the snow/skateboard subculture making its way into metal here in Europe and making it all cool and that for us. While In Flames became a parody of themselves, Soilwork continue to make awesome music and knowing how hardy and consistent these Swedes can be, we're in for many more to come from them.
@@MetalTrenches I agree because In Flames is extremely hit or miss. I absolutely love Jester Race, Whoracle, Colony, and Clayman, those are some of my all-time favorite albums. I think their albums from Reroute to Remain to A Sense of Purpose were pretty solid, but Sounds of a Playground Fading is where they started falling off for me. Siren Charms and Battles were both really bad albums, and I The Mask has a few good songs but it's mediocre IMO. I hope their album sticks to the heavier direction of their two newer singles.
I would place "Verkligheten" at Tier S. There's no bad track on it. The overall sound and melodies were/are something new for me even as for Soilwork's standards. Moreover, this album gives me a vibe of positive/optimistic energy or something like that which is quite unique in this genre or in heavier metal styles.
I agree. The ebb and flow of each song fits perfectly into the next, being brutal at some parts and straight up majestic at the rest. Arrival is an absolute banger, the outro of bleeder despoiler is gorgeous which goes into that nasty intro riff of full moon shoals, then going into the beautiful intro to the nurturing glance, I can go on and on. No, it doesn’t do anything super crazily ambitious, but it’s such a cohesive, majestic album.
My favorite band.
S Tier, The Ride Majestic, Verkligheten, The Panic Broadcast, Wisp of the
Atlantic (had to add)
A tier, everything else
One of my alltime favourites. Like you said, they really don't have a single bad album. My ranking would be
S - Natural Born Chaos, Stabbing the Drama, Figure Number Five, The Living Infinite
A - A Predator's Portrait, The Panic Broadcast, The Chainheart Machine, Verkligheten
B - Steelbath Suicide, The Ride Majestic
C - Sworn to a Great Divide
Glad I'm not the only one who loves FN5
This one is the way
Thank you! I’ve been having the best time watching your videos as Im going through each bands discography. I think the only change I’d have made is switching around Figure No 5 and The Living Infinite but both are fantastic records that deserve to be at the top of the ranking.
Favorite band since I got into them back in 2003ish. A Predator's Portrait is still my favorite album of all time. There's just nothing really like it and I still discover little things I never noticed about the playing and production every time I listen to it.
Most people don't realize this, but Whisper clocks in longer than their first album, so it's odd they consider it an EP. I get that they have one super long song in it and it's only 5 tracks, and that probably would be their justification, but to me it's an LP. Same way I consider Living Infinite parts I and II separate albums, and Death Resonance is basically part III (5 songs were recorded during those same sessions).
It's not even fair how good A Predator's Portrait is. Soilwork has plenty of good music, but this one hits a peak that music in general rarely reaches for me. Not sure what kind of witchcraft they used to achieve it, but I'm glad they did. It's well known that Opeth recorded their classic Blackwater Park in the same studio at the same time as APP, so there was clearly something in the air right then and there.
My personal favorites are The Living Infinite, Verkligheten and Overgivenheten, loved almost every single song in those albums
Predator's Portrait for S Tier, great solos on that album. Chainheart Machine is also a classic. Ride Majestic to A
Wow. "Tongue" jazz/triumphant solo and 70s organ on "Whispers and Lights" are my favourite things on the living infinite. I just can't understand the whole lore of soilwork, but i love this album since it's release date.
Stabbing the Drama introduced me to the band and I'll never not love that song. Bjorn's attitude in the vocal delivery along with the riffs make it top tier
Same here
I'm pretty much on board with you for most of this. The first five albums are killer, then it gets a little hit & miss, but never awful. I haven't been very impressed with the 3 tracks I've heard from the new album. Too much clean singing and a bit sappy for my taste, but I'll give it a fair listen Friday. My tier is:
S: The Chainheart Machine, A Predator's Portrait, Natural Born Chaos
A: Steelbath Suicide, Figure Number Five
B: The Living Infinite, The Ride Majestic, Stabbing the Drama
C: The Panic Broadcast, Sworn to a Great Divide, Verkligheten
I agreed metal trenches, the chainheart machine was the first album that got me into them… It’s the best they have ever done and I love it
Yeah the lead singer of soilwork did guest vocals on demon hunter song called collapsing it's great
The intro to the song Let this River Flow off the Panic Broadcast is like if the guy from Opeth wasn't depressed all the time.
Hahahaha, this comment is so underrated
I'd rank their albums as follows:
S: The Chainheart Machine, A Predator's Portrait, Natural Born Chaos, The Living Infinite
A: Steelbath Suicide, Stabbing the Drama, The Ride Majestic, Overgivenheten
B: Figure, Number Five, The Panic Broadcast, Verkligheten
B-: Sworn to a Great Divide
I've loved this band since discovering Stabbing The Drama at an FYE store in 2005. I enjoy everything they've put out.
Excellent tier! Chainheart machine is my absolute favorite from them.
Death Resonance shoulda been highlighted its a great few songs and I know its not a fully unique album. but dam the songs they have on here are gnarly technique .
I like your shirt bro! My band Alions almost played with them at the Jewel in Manchester NH, but they had to back out for some reason. They are sick though.
This tier list reminds me that I need to finish listening to their modern stuff. Soilwork is a very solid and consistent band
S: Natural Born Chaos, The Living Infinite, The Predator's Portrait
A: Stabbing the Drama, The Ride Majestic, Chainheart Machine
B: Steelbath Suicide, Verkligheten, The Panic Broadcast
C: Figure Number Five
D: Sworn to a Great Divide
Soilwork is a pretty consistent band for the most part. Can't wait to listen to their new album!
I'm tellin ya'll... you're sleeping on FN5
This would be pretty much identical to my ranking!
Here would be my tier-ranking for Soilwork. I can't wait to give their new album Overgivenheten a listen when it comes out Friday.
S - Figure Number Five, Stabbing the Drama
A - The Chainheart Machine, Natural Born Chaos, The Panic Broadcast, The Ride Majestic
B - Steelbath Suicide, A Predator's Portrait, Sworn to a Great Divide, The Living Infinite
C - Verkligheten
This. Although I’d probably move Verkligheten to B tier since it’s grown on me quite a bit.
Pretty close to me. I've been listening to Soilwork for a long time.
Same! Abandoned Soilwork from "Stabbing the Drama" on, brought back by the "Whisp of Atlantic" to enjoy them once more
A Predator's Portrait - probably their best :) Love the soloing, lyrics, lead harmonies, details. This is why I have to clarify, there is no song named "The Avenger Stalker" :D (cool title nonetheless). In terms of musical quality, I think only The Chainheart Machine really rivals it. And some of the newer progressive stuff also gets to that level. Having said that, I enjoy basically their entire discography (not having gotten into some of the newer stuff) and it is really diverse. Thanks for covering Soilwork and sharing your thoughts! \m/
Soilwork is what got me into the Melodic Death Metal / Melodic Metalcore band Dreamshade. In my opinion then, they pioneered a *type* of Melodeath sound! Love ‘em!
Its funny to hear this take on their early stuff. I imagine a lot of my love for that particular period of metal, these albums in particular, come from the fact that those were the years I was really getting into metal. Razorlives is in fact that got me into metal.
I'm not really into bands with the growly style vocals, but I really like these guys. Enjoying the new album as well.
I found a CD in like 2003 called Point Break Vol 1 (there's no Vol 2 lol), I found so many bands from that album, Soulwork, Avenged Sevenfold, Thrice, it was awesome. Follow the Hollow was the Soulwork track, awesome nu metally stuff
Follow The Hollow is one of the GOATs
A lot of the new catchy sing-along courses on the new album. Remind me of Christians work on solution 45.
Thanks for ranking, truly speaking Soilwork is one of band which i totally missed, now i started listening from very beginning and i confirmed my opinion that from melodic DM discographhies i prefer 1-3 first albums. Starting from ca. 4th recording music turns to be too clear, sophisticated. I prefer raw, pure, wild, straightforward debuts, sophomores from DT, IF, Soilwork and others.
Their first two are definitely my favorites, Natural Born Chaos I find to be quite overrated and the Ride Majestic is my favorite since the early 00's. A Whisp of the Atlantic EP was really good and am looking forward to their new one. Great list.
Hope you enjoy it
Very accurate evaluation man!
Figure no 5 fell off from S to B for me in time but gotta say you are on point with all the rest
Also Verkligheten quite obiously is half-baked, its overall quality drops sharply half-way through.
Omethi and Act of Denial are great projects Bjorn is also in. And the songs he done with I Legion are fantastic as well... That man has some of the best pipes in the game
The first 3 albums are great but you can't beat the creativity of Natural Born Chaos and Figure Number Five, the catchy choruses without sounding bad like modern In Flames is unmatched.
I'm much more in agreement with you on this list compared to Arch Enemy. Biggest difference is I would put Figure number 5 at B tier at best. And TBH, I don't know how many albums past that one I listened to all the way through since I got bored with the band at that point. Definitely looks like I should check out the living infinite at least.
Worth revisiting
S - Figure Number Five, Stabbing the Drama, A Predator's Portrait
A - The Ride Majestic, The Living Infinite
B - Natural Born Chaos, Sworn to a Great Divide
C - Verkligheten, The Panic Broadcast
As for the newest album i would probably put it somewhere near B or a low A, it's better than Verkligheten but only slightly.
EATEN BACK 2 LIFE ....32YR. ANNIVERSARY. Today... have 2 watch this vid later tho.. Soilwork 🖤🖤
It's hard to rank Soilwork because as you said, none of the albums are even close to bad (Great Divide is definitely at the bottom though). I'd personally rank Ride Majestic higher than Living Infinite as I feel like it accomplishes all the same cool stuff in half the runtime, and I'd be lying if I said Stabbing wasn't an S tier one for me, but honestly you really can't go wrong with any of these.
S: Chainheart, Predator's, Stabbing
A: NBC, Figure #5
B: Panic. Ride Majestic
C: Living Infinite, Steelbath
D: Verk, Sworn
Ride Majestic A for me or at least a B. And Living Infinte an S.. Great review, saw them live in Sydney 2022, worth the 4 hour drive, but the crowd could have been bigger. Still, every album had something worth listening to. 😊🤘
3:47 YES!!! Glad to see you put in my favorite cartoons from my childhood!
I also think "The Chainheart Machine" is their best album and masterpiece. That's actually the album that really got me into metal back then. I went to the store to buy the new RATM album (The Battle of Los Angeles) and in the shop, there were a couple of headphones which you could use to listen to the newest releases. And one of these new releases was The Chainheart Machine. I put the headphones on, pressed play, and it blew my f'king mind. It changed my life forever, I guess ?
Unfortunately, I don't listen to Soilwork any more because I don't like the direction they chose for the band and I don't like the albums released after Sworn to a Great Divide.
Side note : Next month, I'll go to what would have been "the ultimate melodeath gig" back in the early 2000's : Soilwork + In Flames + Arch Enemy.
Unfortunately, we're in 2024 and I don't listen to Soilwork or In Flames any more. And they're unlikely to play their older stuff. Still love Arch Enemy though.
The biggest reviewers and magazines in Sweden hated Figure no 5 so much on release. Commercial, selling out etc.. But i always loved it !! So good
They were WRONG
I agree 1000% with Steelbath Suicide & Chainheart Machine being their best albums, Steelbath being criminally underrated. Their more modern stuff is accessible to get your foot into the door if you're not a metal fan, but I didn't enjoy their transition into more mainstream less aggressive style. Couldn't bring myself to listen to the last 2 albums (same with In Flames)
A Whisp of the Atlantic is actually the first “album” I listened to by Soilwork. I stumbled upon Death Diviner on a random Spotify playlist, and then became obsessed with the title track. I’ve personally be jamming their latest album nonstop for weeks. Working my way through some of their other work as well, but the prog sound connects with me the most.
The Ride Majestic 🔥
Agree that Soilwork peaked early. They were fucking untouchable back with Wichers + Frenning on guitar and Ranta on drums. In some ways they reminded me of Deep Purple's MK II era. The current era with David Andersson is cool, but slightly more inconsistent for me. However it sounds like what they're doing now makes them happy, so respect and power to them for that! Soilwork has always been way above average regardless of line-up.
My tier list would be:
S - A Predator's Portrait, The Chainheart Machine, Natural Born Chaos
A - The Panic Broadcast, Stabbing the Drama
B - The Living Infinite, Figure Number Five, Steelbath Suicide, The Ride Majestic
C - Sworn to a Great Divide, Övergivenheten (early days, could move up)
D - Verkligheten
P.S. Soilwork if you read this, you know you've got a couple of MONSTER composers in Sylvain and Sven, please give them more songs
Verklighten is a great album! Give it another try one of my favorites. Also Stabbing the Drama deserves a higher tier but otherwise I dig your list
I’ve listened to it so many times and it still just hasn’t made the connection
I'll listen to all of Overgivenheten once my exams are over the replacement cable for my earphones arrives, but so far, Overgivenheten and the second track (sorry. Just don't remember the title) are sick as fuck
Predators Portrait forever love
2 min into this video, I agree with your every breath. No need to listen to any further discussion post portrait. Thank you sir.
Anything produced by Devin is Stella!!
I have never fully dived into Soilworks catalogue thoroughly, I had the panic broadcast and thought 2 lives of reckoning is a sick track, also caught them supporting Sepultura here in the uk and they were good, just something about them has never fully pulled me in, will have to check out more, I'm not so keen on there clean vocals though
Sworn Great Divide and Whisp of the Atlantic are my two favorite. Great band overall.
YOU MADE MY DAY ONCE AGAIN GOOD SIR😂😂😎😎we almost have the same exact tier ranking. I’d put Living Infinite in S and Figure in A. The EP blew my fucking mind, definitely one of the best things to come out of 2020 lmao
Sick. 100%
I stopped listening to Soilwork after high school. Nerve and Stabbing the Drama were good tracks but I felt they were going in a more mainstream rock direction. After watching your list, I gave The Living Infinite a listen. There are some killer songs on there. Some better then others but it is a solid double album. Thanks man.
Glad I could turn you onto something you hadn't heard yet
S tier: A Predator’s Portrait, Natural Born Chaos, Chainheart Machine, Steelbath Suicide
A tier: The Living Infinite, Stabbing The Drama
B tier: Figure Number Five, The Panic Broadcast
B- tier: Övergivenheten, The Ride Majestic
C tier: Verkligheten, Sworn To A Great Divide
I was very tempted to put STD at S cuz I’ve seen them live 3 times during that album cycle and last time was when Peter left sadly and the current guy David Andersson played as a live guitarist. But low A it is!
Very respectable ranking!
@@captweirdbeard I had to put some thought on this really! The S tier especially how to arrange them. The only reason I put APP and NBC over TCM is the clean vocals. Musically they’re both simpler in a sense especially lead work wise but man those clean vocals add something! Thanks man!
@@SatanBled lol I get it. Depending on my mood that day, TCM, APP or NBC could all claim the top spot. I do find that APP most regularly occupies that spot so it's probably #1 overall, but all 3 of them are flawless honestly.
@@captweirdbeard I go with APP too for the most frequent one. Wichers and Fenning are just on fire!
The Living Infinite is a 10 out of 10, No Skip! S Tier!
I got on the bandwagon during the Ride the Majestic release but its amazing how they can release consistently strong material.
Been a huge fan of Soilwork since first hearing Stabbing the Drama. It might be a hot take but since I prefer more melodic metal songs with clean vocals, my preference is very different.
I actually won’t rank the first two albums since I haven’t listened to either the whole way through, but I will say that Spirits of a Future Sun is an absolute banger. Also, I consistently enjoy all their demos and unreleased/bonus tracks (Wherever Thorns May Grow and My Nerves, Your Everyday Took are actually my favourite songs of theirs.) Also these measures are based on how consistently good I feel the albums are (though I will mention standout songs). Since I haven’t heard the new one enough yet, I will withold Judgement on it too.
S: Natural Born Chaos, The Panic Broadcast, The Living Infinite, Verkligheten
A: Predator’s Portrait, Stabbing the Drama, The Ride Majestic
B: Figure Number Five
C: Sword to a Great Divide
As a bonus to this: Light the Torch, Stabbing the Drama and Whirl of Pain are all S tier songs for me.
Hey, MT. Being a fellow Soilwork fan, I was curious what you thought of Speeds various side projects. Mainly Act of Denial and Night Flight Orchestra?
One of my favorite bands and one of my gateways into more extreme metal. I bought STD when it came out after I heard Nerve and goddamn my 14 year old self loved that album. I can't really say I disagree with much of this list. It's almost identical to where I would rank this discography.
🥂
COMPLETELY agree with your comments on Living Infinite, to me it’s actually underrated. It’s a modern day classic. Also agree with Ride Majestic, it’s the only album of theirs that’s never connected with me. And yes, people cannot sleep on A Whisp of the Atlantic! The title track alone brings me near tears still
💯
Consistent high quality!
Totally agree.
Now I want to get into soil work even more but would you do Shadows Fall if you enjoy Shadows Fall that would be awesome if you did.
Maybe
Cool. keep head banging on flight of Icarus
To be honest with you, I meet Soilwork when The Chainheart Machine, was their last at the moment. I did become very interested in the band so I got Steelbath Suicide and a bit later Predator. But when Natural Born Chaos came, I would said it was good, but not what i was looking for. I did hear Fiigure #5 thanks to a Friend of mine and the same, was good but not interested in that sound. And that was all about Soilwork for me, I did never listened any of their later albums, not even feel curious about it. But now that Im more open to Melodic Metalcore maybe I would take a look what I was missing about this band all these years.
Razorliiiiiives! First 4 albums are all S tier!
Been listening to Soilwork since early 2000's, with Predator's Portrait being my first album I've heard.
Soilwork is deffinitely one of my all time stars when it comoes to metal music - here's my list:
S TIER:
Natural Born Chaos
The Ride Majestic
A TIER:
Figure Number Five
Stabbing the Drama
A Predator's Portrait
B TIER:
The Panic Broadcast
Sworn to a Great Divide
Steelbath Suicide *
The Chainheart Machine *
( * both albums I would rank higher, if they had a better sound/production )
C TIER:
Verkligheten
The Living Infinite
D TIER
Övergivenheten ( this just straight out doesn't sound like Soilwork at all to me lol )
Much of the newer stuff would rank much higher, but I really HATE the trend of bands adding so much (modern) blast-beat, especially into passages/arrangements, where it would sound 1000% better without it. Verkligheten would be easily an A tier, maybe even S Tier, because there are so many wonderfully wondrous harmonies and melodies, all destroyed by that fucking drumming onany. Same with The Living Infinite, although just solid
A Tier
I should mention i haven't heard the newest one but didn't like Verklighteten at all..Glad to hear you say the new one is better.
Figure Number Five is so streamlined that I just feel lukewarm on it even to this day, it would be better with a little more going on woth the riffs and song structures. I agree with you on Stabbing the Drama when it came out, it's grown on me but just not enough good melodies, especially on guitar. It felt like they were leaning too far towards gaining a nu-metal audience, but I can appreciate some of it now. The worst part of Sworn is the production, IMO. So thin and tinny, but the album has a string of good songs at the end.
FNF was rushed. Maybe it was Nuclear Blast putting pressure on them for releasing something fast to tour with In Flames and make it overseas.
Soilwork had been remarkably consistent.
I'm not gonna rank them because that's too difficult. I would just say a little bit about each...
Steelbath suicide- A good record but, unfortunately a one trick pony. If you like pure At the Gate's worship then you're going to love this. The production is not bad but not great. This is a very raw album. To me this is Soilwork, in the making.
Chain heart machine- The same trick we got the last album but a whole hell of a lot better. This is one of my favorite soilwork albums despite the fact that it is 1 dimensional. The songs are just so damn good. The title track, generation speed kill, Million flame and room number 99 are worth the price of admission alone. If you're looking for the more aggressive side of melodic death metal you can't go wrong with this.
A predator's portrait- The very 1st album I bought from soil work. Although, I heard the chain heart machine 1st. I remember buying this alongside The Haunted's made me do it. This is a transitional album. The problem I have with it is it's kind of patchy. I would say half the songs are really good and push their sound further. Examples would be like the average stalker, needle fest and grand failure anthem. Other songs like bastard chain, Are just kind of there and were better on the chain heart machine. A good record but a very inconsistent one. But the good songs are great. The other songs are just there. This is kind of par for the course for a transitional album.
Natural born chaos- Soilwork attempting to go the route of inflames without completely abandoning what they are. This is Speed strids fully realizing his clean singing potential. I like this a lot more back in 2002. All the songs are for the most part good. This album has a certain hokeyness to it that I'm not a huge fan of. It's almost like some of the bad elements of metal core started to rub off on them. Still a great album through-and-through. This is soil works black album even though it happens to be white. Lol
Figure number 5- I didn't like this at all back in 2003. But after revisiting it... Yeah, it's a good album. I think this album is a bit more streamlined than the last one and is more or less there most commercial sounding one. With the explosion of metal core and inflames, Soilwork said Hey what about us? Even though it sounds different from all their previous work it still sounds like Soilwork. Harsh vocals are a little more deeper than in the past. Clean still sound great. These songs seem to be more streamblind where everything kind of counts. This is soilworks black album part 2, But I would much rather hear this than the actual black album.
Stabbing the drama- My least favorite soil work album, by far. Only 3 songs actually stuck with me. The title track, weapon of vanity, And the bonus track wherever thorns may grow. Since this is actually a bonus track, in reality, only 2 songs on the whole album are good. Download those 3 songs and that's it. One of only 2 bad records. This feels like soilwork trying to do metal core. Which makes no sense because they predate it.
Sworn to a great divide- This is a lot of people's least favorite. I don't know why. To me, this is about 2/3 good. The big problem I have with it is the really thin shitty guitar production. It is absolutely a nightmare and takes away from the enjoyment of the songs that are actually good. So much so that I don't go back to listen to this record even though 2/3 of the songs are good because of the really bad guitar tone. It's that off putting! I don't know why this tone was chosen. The bad songs on this record still have that metal core hangover vibe. That's a whole this album is still good. Guitar tone is fucking terrible though! Jesus!
The panic broadcast- Absolutely great opener. This album is the same as the last in terms of quality of songs. The production is much better this time around although that kind of crappy guitar tone still lingers. But it's not enough to make me not listen to the album this time around. The bad songs kind of have the same metal core type vibe of the last record. This is more or less sworn to a great divide part 2 with a better guitar tone and somewhat stronger songwriting with blues and rock influences creeping their way in, but in a good way.
The living infinite- A double album full of the best stuff the soilwork has made to date. Double albums are really hard to pull off and soil work absolutely did it! Out of the 20 songs on this thing, I only dislike 3. Song's number 2 on both disks I have not listened to more than once. It's kind of funny that both song number two's are our complete ass. The 3rd song that sucks is owls stand guard, oracles can go fuck off or whatever the hell this thing is called. I would say this album is the best representation of soil work. I like the new progressive elements coming in here. They seem to have ditched the metal core vibe for something more along the lines of a fleshed out version of melodic death metal. I would call this progressive melodic death metal. With a great balance between the 2. This is a classic record. I would put this right next to the chain heart machine even though the 2 sound vastly different. I enjoy them the same.
The ride Majestic- This seems like a slightly more somber version of the last album. Still this is another great album! This is actually a little more streamlined here. Don't understand why anybody wouldn't like this record. It's basically a streamlined Version of the living infinite without losing what made that album great. Father and son watching the world go down is an awesome closer. Just a hair under the living infinite.
Ver- Very disappointed. After 3 killer singles. There is absolutely nothing on this album that connects with me. Is the arrival, Full moon shoals, staffagel are great. The rest is just kind of there. This would have been a great 3 song EP. This is the 2nd worst soil work album for me. But I can't really complain. They've never really sucked and they've been on quite a roll until now.
Over- I haven't heard the whole thing yet. Just the title track. But it's awesome! I hope the rest of this album is of this quality, Unlike the last record. Which pulled the woll over my eyes after releasing 3 great songs in a row. It comes out in a couple of days so I'll hear the whole thing then.
Soilwork is a great band, With tons of great albums that all sound different from each other. This is how you evolve without changing who you are fundamentally. In flames needs to take some notes from soilwork.
Dang. Thanks for taking the time to share all of that.
@@MetalTrenches no problem. Been listening to soil work since 1999. This band has been criminally underrated. They are everything that inflames isn't. I don't understand how speed strid is not more popular in the metal community over a gimp like Anders Friden. Even on inflames classic stuff Anders is, by far, the weakest link. He is the equivalent to Lars Ulrich, only on vocals. Soil work should be the band that people talk about and when it comes to melodic death metal evolving. Unfortunately, they actually evolve instead of devolve so that's why they don't get much shine.
It's much easier to wine like Korn and do open note chugga chugga and call that progress; Then to incorporate progressive rock, blues folk into your sound and actually get better in vocals as time goes on.
Inflames is the Swedish Metallica, Only clueless. I saw Metallica in 1996. On the load tour. Even then, They were not cutting out songs like master of puppets to make room for Ronnie. Even they knew where their bread was buttered. So they did not play More than 5 load songs the entire night. Although it got worse with reload. My friend actually saw them do a kill/ride medley, butchering most of the songs off the 1st 2 records and a salsa rendition of the 4 horsemen, in 1997 Yeah. He was pissed. But that's as clueless as Metallica got. Inflames have been stuffing the set list with crap that nobody wants to hear with maybe "only for the weak" as the only pre reroute song. The last time I seen them was on the come clarity tour. And I really only went because Nevermore was opening. And they were fresh off "this godless endeavor".
It looks like inflames is finally getting it as they are adding more older songs to the set list and releasing new material that isn't completely terrible.
I didn't mean to make this about inflames; but soil work is just a million times better and I don't understand why in flames is so loved. Actually I do understand it, I just don't like it. Dumbing it down John Davis style isn't exactly my cup of tea.
This is extremely late, but i'm actually going to talk about the newest soil work album.
To me this is another great record. After their progressive EP's ; This sounds like a more streamlined version of that. This album is getting criticism for adding a lot more progressive elements. And some of our going as far as to say that there isn't much melodic death metal here. I don't know what record they are hearing. There are tons of melodic death metal on here it's just got a whole lot Of progressive metal/rock wallpaper on it. This album will switch genre's sometimes in the same song and tie it in seemlessly. This album has only one song I don't like. Not because it's bad, but there are other songs on it which do the exact same thing. That song would be... this godless universe. If you trim that, Put the instrumentals in with the song instead of calling it their own thing. Because none of these instrumentals are call of the Kathulu, they are very short. And get rid of the chorus that doesn't fit on song number two. Not the key section. The thing that comes immediately after it. It sounds more upbeat than the rest of the song , but not enough to actually be a powerful chorus. It's just there and doesn't really fit. Outside of that, everything here is great. Yes the progressive rock/ night flight orchestra stuff is more pronounced here; but I don't see that is a bad thing.
I can see people saying that this is doing what the living infinite was doing. But doesn't quite grab your attention as much as that album. I understand that, but the living infinite has some progressive touches. Whereas this album sometimes swims in the progressive pool a lot more. The second song is basically full on prog rock. This album is a much better album than the last one. And it stands out amongst soil works very impressive discography. Unless you absolutely hate progressive rock I don't understand why anyone would dislike this. I think people are blowing smoke up inflames ass; Just because they released something that isn't terrible. Meanwhile , soilwork have been on a over quarter of a century run with only two duds in the mix. And even those bad albums have a couple of good songs and are nowhere near the level of risk or saint anger. Nor are those bad albums a straight up identity crisis. They are just Not the best soil work stuff. I actually feel bad for soil work because they have just been doing a tremendous Job over the years and our complete model of consistency. Yet bands like inflames and arch enemy who haven't released much good material as of late are getting much more shine because of their gimmick. Arch enemy for having two hot chicks in a row front the band. And in flames for being the Metallica of swedished death metal, AKA Living off of accomplishments over 20 years ago.
This is another stellar record. If you hear a song on this album , you will know it is from the album. This is catchy, proggy melodic death metal. I am getting older, but soilwork is not. They are aging like Paul Rudd. Whereas in flames has aged like bridget fonda.
We have very very very different rankings on Soilwork albums; though I think this is a case of me being the weird one moreso than you having odd picks. I really don't see the hype around Natural Born Chaos and would slot it in around B- tier, and I actually do think Soilwork have some bad albums - Figure Number Five, Stabbing The Drama, and Sworn To A Great Divide are D tier with StD (what an unfortunate acronym) potentially being an F. I really don't like anything about Stabbing The Drama. The Living Infinite belongs in S, and the last 3 albums are all like super high B bordering on A for me. Which, I think means I think Soilwork isn't a great rock band and I prefer it when they go for more artsy-fartsy high concept stuff. I know that lands me in the minority though.
Give Figure Number Five a fresh listen if it’s been a while. You might be surprised
If there's a FFDP bash review coming up, I'm looking forward to it.
Oh you know it... Cringe meter incoming.
I think Stabbing the Drama flows the best of all their albums. The double album is a masterpiece. Hard to beat anything from Predators and before though
If you love Bjorn- checkout Night Flight Orchestra
Exile is pretty much the proof that bad production/sound CAN'T kill good music. Like in the old days of analogue recording (compared to music produced now) a good song is still a good song regardless of the recording. ^^
The only complaint about the title track of the chainheart machine is the awkward way it ends lol
In flames and soilwork didn't they together for like a marriage amount of years?
Soilwork destroys in flames all day. In addition to your comments of the decline from ff5 to stabbing the drama, they also went from making their most keyboard dominated album with ff5 to stabbing the drama the keyboards being diminished to almost non-existent and when they do show up, they're much lower in the mix. I haven't been able to get into anything after that. The first 5 albums are rad. I can't decide a best one but chain heart is the only one where i really loved the screams.
I didnt think Soilwork have any weak or super weak albums, they are pretty consistent. It's one of those bands they you love them or hate. The double album is pretty sick. Great video.
I don't know anybody who hates Soilwork, one of the most liked bands universally, they've done nothing wrong their entire career.
Yeah the double album blew me away. VERY rare to pull that off right.
@@Goryptor there is some metal people who hate the singing they do and some of their hooks in songs. Some people just like straight deathmetal heaviness. Soilwork writes songs.
@@MetalNeverDieswithMarkA Yeah but you can't take their opinion seriously as their taste is very limited...
@@Goryptor I agree man
I also stopped listening to the band when Stabbing the Darama came out. You can note that that's in the era when these bands were touring with American bands at the time and record labels were pushing all these bands to cross-pollinate the sound and fan base (and thus increase capitol) and it just failed so hard for me.
And these bands they were touring them with wereyour Triviums, Fear Factory's, snd other screamo and metal core chaffe
haven't listened to much soilwork but i can confirm the chainheart machine is badass.
Worth the dive imo. Thanks for tuning in
S+ - A Predator's Portrait
S - The Ride Majestic, Chainheart Machine
A - pretty much every other album
.
.
.
F - Sworn to a great divide.... (even though it has my favorite Soilwork song)
You should rate testament’s albums
One day
I really adore everything from S and A tier. B tier is fine. C tier has fine moment. I personally hate Soilworks more metalcore-ish stuff (except few tracks, but i dont like metalcore in general). Im so glad that last two albums are really cool. High expectations for the new one.
S: The Predator's Portrait, Steelbath Suicide, Chainheart Machine
A: Verkligheten, Natural Born Chaos, The Ride Majestic
B: The Living Infinite
C: The Panic Broadcast, Figure Number Five
D: Stabbing the Drama, Sworn to a Great Divide
Stabbing the Drama is my fav Soilwork LP. It was the second one that I ever heard, with the first being NBC (witch I also love). So to me it felt like a natural progression. I have not heard the new one yet so I cant speak on that one but while still good, I do not like any of the bands other albums nearly as much as those two. I am likely in the minority here but its just my opinion and it occurs to me that it is largely based in the Mere-exposure effect.
Yeah the entry point here could definitely dictate preference. They've had a few different styles.
Soilwork lost after Ride Majestic. Starting to sound too much like night flight orchestra imo. Beyond the infinite was a good EP too.
Figure No.5 at S tier..... hmmmm.... I definitely dropped off a bit with that one. Would definitely rate Natural Born Chaos as S tier myself. It was the first album of theirs I heard and it blows Fig No.5 out of the water! I also enjoyed Ride Majestic and their last album a lot more than you apparently, hahahaha! I'm glad The Living Infinite is getting the recognition it deserves here, as I find that to be the underrated gem in their discography
Let me just say though: how long has it been since you actually listened to FN5? I was just as surprised as you were.
@@MetalTrenches you know what, I'll definitely give it another go as it has been quite some time! Hopefully I'll get as much from it as you did :)
I know some metal albums won't be as popular but Rate Your Music is a much better source for user reviews in my opinion
Im glad you ranked FN5 where you did. That album gets way too much flack.
EASILY
Good thing our enjoyment is subjective, cause so many things you disliked I personally loved ;D.
Of course it is
You just hurt my feelings because verklighten is my favourite album
Opinions should never hurt your feelings
Yeah well it just did😤
The first four albums are great, with Figure Number Five they started to get a little generic in my opinion. I think Stabbing the Drama and Sworn… are actually pretty boring ( Not bad but not good either ). From The Panic Broadcast onwards I actually enjoyed every output ( solid B Tier albums ). Pretty interested in the new one which will arrive tomorrow - the singles were promising.
S Natural born, Stabbing, Figure, A Whisp
A Sworn, The Panic, The ride
B Steelbath, Chainheart and Predator
Zzz Verkligheten worst album by a long shot. Drumming is all blast beats and music is so processed
Based
@@MetalTrenches Thank you, Thank you. Your icon looks like The Exiled Martyr symbol.
What makes soilwork death metal? The Hard vocals and the occasional blast beats? to me I've never really seen them as a death metal band. His voice isn't really deathaaaaahhhh.
Have you heard the first two albums?
@@MetalTrenches yes but I would have rank those albums mid-tier.
Other than that it was pretty damn good B+
There’s only one consistency with soilwork is reviewer inconsistency or the genera-listening scene.
Too heavy, not heavy enough, EP’s to long, EP’s to cluttered, I want to stab myself in the eye ballZ after all the criticism after EVERY EP
It’s remarkable and sad how the human brain works judging the sound coming out of a ever changing band is pointless. This new one is something different, they’re is more emotions and complexed lyrics , the hooks and heavy planned out.
This maybe the metal EP of the year, but go ahead and shit on it, nothing new from the elites….
What video did you even watch? I didn’t shit on anything? Chill out.
@@MetalTrenches you’re the one categorizing every EP, and what I was saying was not directed at you. It’s just all the back lash they got after their third EP, it put a sour taste in my mouth hearing complaining about how it was not as heavy as the first two from the metal scene.
You complained that you lost interest in the middle and it didn’t live up to your expectations…of progressive metal, opinions are like azz holes everyone’s got one.
Cheers friend.
I like your videos, but if it's not the old (old-fashioned) Gothenburg sound then you're basically devaluing them with a few exceptions. Unfortunately, this is no longer an objective review suitable for the masses. Rather, it reflects your purely personal taste in a