Soilwork Album: “The Chainheart Machine”

This six-man metal army of the Gothenburg alliance strikes like a rapid ball of flames and keeps you on the edge of sanity throughout. The vocalist "Speed" Strid screams like a bat out of hell and never lets up, the dual guitar mastery of Peter Wichers and Ola Frenning attack like a steel metal Jugarnaut, and the keyboards give the music a nice sense of melody among the metal madness. Likely comparisons will be made between these guys and bands like At The Gates and Arch Enemy, but saying these guys are just copycats would be a huge injustice. Every song is of top quality in sheer aggression and melodic harmony. The production is very well rounded just like the music. If you are still asking yourself if its worth it to buy it and my review wasn't enough for you let me give you this advice. If you like your music fast and your volume loud these guys are definetly for you.

Being a fan of older thrash music like Coroner and Kreator, I was blown away when I heard the first track off of The Chainheart Machine. I immediately ran out and bought the CD. It has become one of my favorite metal recordings. Everything is so direct and vicious. Soilwork's vocals are screaming and full of bile, the guitar sound is completely punishing and their musical melodic sense is a perfect meeting ground of old and new (i.e. Iron Maiden and At The Gates.)

I look forward to great things in the future from Soilwork, and I'm happy to have found this recording!

There isn't much I can say about this album cause it speaks for itself. It contains very intricate guitars and drums backed up with screaming and singing. An absolute superb album, the best soilwork album yet in my opinion. Buy it

Soilwork have emerged as another solid Gothenburg band who have clearly drawn their influences from In Flames and, most obviously, At the Gates. While Soilwork do have a remarkable amount of blasting energy in each of their songs on "The Chainheart Machine," the problem lies in the fact that they're almost a complete copy of the latter mentioned band. Soiliwork are a fine example of great Gothenburg metal, and I suppose the similarity to ATG is all but inevitable in the genre. But still, "Generation Speedkill," "BulletBeast" and the title track all hold their own against a slew of other metal bands today who couldn't play half as well as these guys can. Gothenburg metal fans, take note.

When I first put on this CD my immediate impression was Cryptopsy and In Flames mixed together. This album takes you from a chaotic brutal death metal sound reminiscent of Cryptopsy's "Whisper Supremacy" and then takes you into excellent guitar melodies. This album is great for someone into melodic or more technical death metal or even someone just getting into death metal, since the songs seem to go in and out from brutal thrash metal type riffs to extremely melodic riffs, making it much more accessible to metalheads who aren't really into death metal (which can be considered bad by some "death metal purists.") My favorites would have to be "Possessing the Angels," and "Spirits of the Future Sun," I highly recommend this album to almost any metalhead.