What more can I say about Soilwork’s performance at Manning Bar that hasn’t already been said about the 30 years war. It was bloody, it was brutal and there were some long-haired Swedish guys involved.
The opening act Double Dragon were about as good as that b-grade turd-fest of a movie they made with Scott Wolf from Party of Five. Seriously, leave quality video games alone, don’t drag their good names through the mud. Also if the only people getting into your music are 16-year-olds with side fringes and The Used t-shirts, you might as well end it now.
As the anticipation grew, the venue was soon packed to the gills, with eager metal-heads filling in the barren space the support band had cleared. The dancefloor was a seething mass of sweaty bodies, while the balcony, which had been set up as the over-18 drinking area, was even more cramped. Black-clad fans threw back drinks with the bitter resentment of being forced to drink outside in the cold.
Soilwork took to the stage in all their Scandinavian glory. In complete accordance with Nordic metal hair guidelines, they all wore their hair at shoulder length with goatee or had it shaved cue-ball smooth. Despite singer Speed Strid (who’s noticeably packed on the pounds since the band’s last visit to our shores in 2004) being the only remaining original member – with long-time guitarist Ola Frenning having left the band just earlier this year – Soilwork managed to effortlessly traverse the shifting styles and sounds of their seven studio albums. They performed a wide-ranging selection from their extensive and varied catalogue.
The band stayed true to their name (a play on words meaning working from the ground up), delivering dirty and earthy riffs and rhythms that sounded as though they had risen from the depths of a swamp themselves. Each song was masterfully performed. The entire band worked together, erecting walls of distortion and shredding one minute, before tearing them down to reveal picturesque melodies underneath.
They opened with As We Speak, and from the first note the band’s energy was well and truly felt. Speed urged “everyone from the front to the back, I want to see you fucking jump,” as they started playing Distance, with the crowd only too happy to oblige. Exile, the single from their latest album, saw the show move toward a more melodic sound, with keyboardist Sven Karsson weaving intricate melodies over the punishing guitars and drums. “Ready for something fast?” Speed asked as the band launched into the relentless riff of Basket Case. The audience’s excitement levels now reached fever pitch.
One With The Flies came growling through the P.A. as guitarist Daniel Antonsson delivered a scorching solo, before the band pounded out a gruelling rendition of Million Flame. As The Sleeper Awakes showcased drummer Dirk Verbeuren’s superb use of double kick, spitting out sporadic machine-gun bursts of two footed glory.
They closed the set with Stabbing The Drama, the title track from their 2005 album, and it dropped like Steven Hawking on a half-pipe. By this point the crowd had tired itself out, but a wall of greasy shoulder length hair, tattoos and piercings five people deep still remained, crammed up in-front of the stage, cheering as they sluggishly pressed themselves closer still. After the traditional begging for an encore, the long-haired lords returned to the stage and Follow The Hollow tore through the crowd like a fat kid through a chocolate wrapper. They wrapped up the encore with Nerve, and the crowd found their energy again for one more last ditch rock-out, and the mosh pit became a fevered frenzy of flailing limbs and heaving torsos once more.
Discounting a few instances where the sound was muddy or where certain vocal parts or guitar lines were altered or left out, Soilwork gave a ball-blistering performance that’d make your Gran want to get a nipple ring. They showed the crowd why they are considered one of the leading names in modern metal, and proved themselves as a powerhouse live act.
