Korn‘s Jonathan Davis was so excited by ORGY that he created his own record label …
Verkligheten, or ‘reality’, is the subject of Soilwork’s so-entitled eleventh studio album.
The Swedish metal extraordinaires have fleshed out the concept of reality, and whether escaping it, confronting it, or a twisted combination of both, who better to entice us to into their realm of Verkligheten than Soilwork’s vocalist Björn ‘Speed’ Strid.
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So, Verkligheten is a powerful concept and one that every person experiences in some way, including Strid himself. “We all have our reality,” Strid explains, “in a sense, I think with age especially, being a touring musician, for 20 years now, I think sooner or later you sort of need to face reality, you know, you’re kind of forced to, but at the same time, you have to find new ways to escape it, and that’s what the lyrics are really about on this album, so some of them are full of escapism and other ones are very sort of socially relevant, and that makes for a good contrast. And, being a musician, it is kind of easy to go on tour and escape reality, but it’s the transition of coming home, its getting harder each time, and I think its sort of summing up these twenty years somehow, and where we’re at right now … Verkligheten … reality.”
Following the opening title track, Verkligheten moves into a track aptly titled Arrival, which one may presume is our ‘arrival’ to ‘reality’. With Soilwork, however, things are never so straightforward … ”And then,” Strid adds suggestively, “people go okay, this is going to be very realistic, but then other songs, especially David’s [Andersson, guitarist] songs, his lyrics are full of escapism, mine are sort of more, I guess, socially realistic. We are the best of friends and we sort of connect through that somehow … it’s an interesting relationship … so there’s a little bit of both on the album. I guess it’s up to each and every one to interpret that per song, if it’s the ‘arrival’ of reality or the ‘arrival’ of something completely different.”
Indeed, one can make no assumptions with Soilwork … one may even be justified to sense more than a hint of rebelliousness on Verkligheten … ”Absolutely” Strid defiantly confirms, “and I think that was one of the things we wanted to do on this album as well, as it will definitely take you on a journey, when you think you’re sort of safe and sound it just throws you over again … it’s the element of surprise, I think that also connects very much with the lyrical content.”
I don’t have any kids and I don’t really have education, all I know is touring and music.
[ Björn ‘Speed’ Strid ]
Transcending any kind of simple duality between ‘escaping’ and ‘confronting’ reality, Strid is quite comfortable with the strange greyscale space in the middle. “In a way I’ve done quite a journey, “Strid reflects, “starting when I was seventeen, and today I’m forty [laughs] … I think its only now that I’ve been able to grasp what I’ve been through, you know, and I think that is sort of where reality happens [laughs] somehow [laughs]. So, it’s about confronting it, but also, it tends to get pretty boring if all you have to do is face reality, and thankfully there are ways to escape it that you don’t need drugs to do that, like cool music, and that’s one of the reasons why I still do it, because it’s the greatest way we have of escaping reality, and its somehow very easy to build up a lyrical and conceptual field around that theme.”
On how this album and its theme relates to, or departs from, Soilwork’s more recent releases, such as 2015’s The Ride Majestic, Strid notes, “Well, I think its sort of more, you know, classic heavy metal influence, somehow, I know that is something we had at the beginning of the career, especially the first two or three albums, and that’s something that we decided with this record even though its definitely picking up where we left both The Living Infinite and The Ride Majestic. I think so as a main sort of balance. Its not a very groove-based record, it has more extreme flow … and then there’s a lot of details in the music, very multi-layered, which is very cool, you know … its not like a wall of guitars like it usually is, so we have sort of strayed away from that as well, in order to bring out the details. I think it is one of those albums you can listen to so many times and still discover new things.”
Part of what makes Verkligheten such a multilayered album is the apparent alchemy between reality, and its ‘other’, which as Strid says is brought to their writing by the way in which own grim realism, mixes the sense of idealism in Andersson’s style. On how the two songwriters connect, Strid emphasises that despite their different dispositions, music is the common ground, “… it’s just where we’re at right now,” Strid explains, “and to talk about something where me and David connect, even though we live completely different lives—he is a doctor and father of two, I don’t have any kids and I don’t really have education, all I know is touring and music–we also connect, and his reality might be different from mine, but I think we can also connect it, through this album, lyrically, and musically–that’s how we communicate.”
Speaking of communicating, what exactly does Strid hope that any listener of Verkligheten will take from it? “… A good question,” Strid ponders, “I mean kids growing up today, they have a different reality to what I had growing up … and this is a kind of a nice introduction to ‘reality’ and what you can also do with it, you’re allowed to escape it, there are other ways to escape reality … it’s a good introduction to different realities.”
Verkligheten is out now through Nuclear Blast.
