Soilwork - The Ride Majestic

(CD Album Review)

****

Soilwork get more unique on 'The Ride Majestic' !!!

Following on from the monumental double album 'The living Infinite' Soilwork return more confident and more unique than ever. At this point I can’t think of a single band that sound like Soilwork and vice versa. On this new release 'The Ride Majestic', it's astounding how far the band have come.

The band are a far cry from the Death Metal band that came out of the Swedish scene back in the 90’s, nowadays musically they have more in coming with Queensryche then In flames or Entombed. They now have more of a Melodic Metal / Metalcore commercial sound to them, but this doesn't not take away from them in any way.

'The Ride Majestic' shows the band at their most melodic and yes unfortunately a lot of the heaviness from the earlier albums has been lost but the sheer quality of the song writing replaces what the band expressed with big riffs and down tuned guitars.

This is apparent when the album opens, instead of exploding into life like most Metal albums this begins with a mellow somewhat Bluesy riff….and then explodes!. So Soilwork have really mixed things up on 'The Ride Majestic', which has a religious cover. I never thought they would go for something like this for the album artwork, so they are full of surprises.

Bjorn “Speed” Strid is without question the finest vocalist in metal today at least in terms of singers in their prime, his range and melody structure is impeccable here and drummer Markus Wibom also does a fantastic performance and when the two come together on a track like 'Enemies in Fidelity' where you have a soulful beautifully sung chorus and it has a blast beat running under it. A stroke of genius that few would attempt and even less could pull off.

'The Ride Majestic' shows Soilwork mature, in a league of their own and completely comfortable in their own skin. I still rate 'Stabbing the Drama' as their masterpiece and old schooler’s will still cling to 'Natural born Chaos' newcomers to the band may want to try one of the previously mentioned albums before starting with this. However, for long term fans this is a great addition to their brilliant catalogue which has depth, richness and variety and reveals more with every listen.

Review by Joe Denby