SOILWORK - The Panic Broadcast LP (Transparent Yellow Vinyl)

One thing is for certain…the modernization that’s been in such high quantities in the albums prior to this is here to stay, it seems, which I understand (but don’t have to like), but thankfully, the UNEARTH rip-off fest that’s envenomed those earlier recordings hasn’t left a lasting effect…at least, as far as I can hear in “The Panic Broadcast”. Instead, all that melody that’s been sadly absent is back, brighter than ever, but in a more progressive way. Like any good Swedish metal act of their caliber, SOILWORK this time around unleash torrents of monstrous and heavy-as-hell thrash riffs that build a strong foundation for the blistering drum beats, goosebumps-inducing harmonic leads, under-mixed keyboards and Speed’s increasingly hardcore shouts and powerful choruses to augment for the better, giving us quite possibly SOILWORK’s best album in these modern years. Taking a big handful of the present-day accessibility of “Figure Number Five” with a few dashes of the tasty melodic tendencies of “Natural Born Chaos” and still being able to showcase that the SOILWORK of old is still in there somewhere, the addictive factor and ability to once again exude unpredictability with the songwriting ensnare the listener from head to toe in those aforementioned positive aspects, with the potential to possibly satisfy the most snarky of one-time Gothenburg aficionados. Rest assured, this will TOTALLY get plenty of listens on my end, as the chaotic likes of “Late for the Kill, Early for the Slaughter”, “Deliverance is Mine” and “King of the Threshold” shove more compositional ideas into their singular forms than many of their contemporaries could in full length albums.