Soilwork – The Panic Broadcast

image courtesy of Nuclear Blast

1. “Late for the Kill, Early for the Slaughter” 4:09
2. “Two Lives Worth of Reckoning” 4:56
3. “The Thrill” 4:33
4. “Deliverance Is Mine” 3:50
5. “Night Comes Clean” 5:12
6. “King of the Threshold” 4:57
7. “Let This River Flow” 5:20
8. “Epitome” 4:44
9. “The Akuma Afterglow” 4:29
10. “Enter Dog of Pavlov” 5:36

I first caught a listen to these guys on the sampler disk from an issue of Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles. The title track from the album The Chainheart Machine. Hailing from Sweden, it was thick with that awesome Gothenburg sound. TCM has been a fairly constant staple in my rotation, and one of the few albums I grab tracks from when introducing people to the sounds of the Swedish Death Metal scene.

Then something happened….*gasp*

The anticipated following releases, Soilwork….started to change…..and to me, it wasn’t something I was particularly fond of. I wound up picking up copies of A Predators Portrait (which is still pretty solid, for the most part) and then Natural Born Chaos (to which was the nail in the coffin for me), to only listen too a couple of times and then cast aside, as in, traded them in….sorry guys, it was like listening to a radio playable version of Arch Enemy, if one can picture that….muuuuuuuch softer sounding, less aggression, more groovy with the addition of clean vocals, or to be more specific, closer sounding to bands like Ultraspank or Sevendust. Not that this is a terrible thing, both of the mentioned bands have great tunes I rather enjoy, and I think Ultraspank is rather underrated, its when you put in a disc, and you’re expecting XXX ear porn, and instead you get softcore cock tease. Anyways…..

So when I was grazing through the CD’s at one of the local record chains this weekend, I stumbled across this new release by them. Everything in my mind and body told me do not waste your money, do not buy it! Curiosity killed the cat, and in metal, things change quickly, and some bands have come out of left field and throw out a gem, and of course, giving in to my own philosophical views, I do the opposite of what my gut feeling is. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t.

So did it pay off?

Sort of. All bands evolve, and this band has certainly done that. Not that I want to say I may have been to hard on them in the past, but I may have been a little less forgiving then what I am today. Wow, did I just say I matured? Still it’s a bit of a shock when you go from Millionflame to say Rejection Role (lol fitting track to my comments…), which is like going from say Kill em All to St.Anger in my opinion.

So enough of this crap, lets get back to the review, when approaching The Panic Broadcast, I put all my previous experiences with Soilwork aside, and took a fresh approach to it. TPB takes the listener through a cocktail of genres, from glimmers of Gothenburg, with elements of the “industrial” sounds to, “power ballads” of the thrash genre.TPB is musically tight and well produced with plenty of punchy riffing to keep the head bobbing, with plenty of light airy moments to change the pace so one doesn’t feel like they are listening to a never ending song. My experience with this album was a pleasant one, and my hats off to them for sticking to a plan and doing what they want. That’s what creating music is all about right? Well, what it should be that is. If any band or “genre” I mentioned is something along the lines of what you like, I can guarantee you’ll like this album.

2.75/5

~Jester

Comment below, or discuss the album at the WMA.