Sep 5, 2024
Unleashed
Unleashed
UNLEASHED “Midvinterblot” CD 2006 (A quite excellent eighth album from the Viking-Death Metal warmachine. ‘Hail Odin ! Drink to Victory !’)
“Too long you've slandered our name And dragged us all in the dust Arguments of incompetence Are easily returned and crushed We will hunt you down This is our world now ! Hunt, hunt, the battle rages The legions of Hell are here You can run but you can't hide There's not even time for fear We will hunt you down This is our world now ! The time of the common man is over The age of the warrior has come !”
Unleashed: Victory (1995)
I wouldn’t dare crown 1995’s Victory among the best albums in Unleashed’s long and distinguished career -- I’ll get my head knocked off!
But I’ve always had a soft spot for it, and feel there’s no album more emblematic of the Swedish death metal institution’s signature sound (for most of their career, anyway): uncomplicated, uncompromising, and rife with Viking adventures.
Released 25 years ago today, it was the quartet’s fourth release overall and very divisive, as it signaled the beginning of a second era in which Unleashed adopted a certain death & roll simplicity, at the expense of the denser, darker complexity found on their first three albums.
Here, song lengths were shortened, grooves were supercharged, and riffs weren’t wasted but celebrated, even if it meant a little more uniformity from highly contagious chug-chug-chug-fests like “Victims of War,” “The Defender,” “Berserk” and “Against the World.”
Just as fun are the band’s alternate descent into slothful doom for the tellingly named “Hail the New Age” and “Precious Land,” and ascent to thrash velocity on the almost punky “Legal Rapes,” sardonic “In the Name of God,” savage “Scream Forth Aggression” and merciless “Revenge.”
Pretty much everything seemed to work for band members Johnny Hedlund (vocals, bass), Fredrik Lindgren (lead guitar), Tomas Olsson (rhythm guitar), and Anders Schultz (drums), who had obviously developed remarkable musical synergy over the previous few years.
So it was a major bummer when Lindgren decided to abandon ship not long after Victory’s release, even if he was expediently and efficiently replaced by Frederik Folkare, who remains with Unleashed a quarter-century later.
And so do those classic Swedish death metal ingredients, which, despite the band’s slight songwriting deviations from album to album, ultimately always guarantee a heroic/demonic listening experience from Unleashed -- or as the lyrics to “The Defender” proclaim:
“Odin, guide my sword! And I’ll slay the enemy! Odin guide my sword! To eternal VICTORY!”
More Unleashed: Where No Life Dwells, Across the Open Sea, Warrior, Hell's Unleashed, Sworn Allegiance, Midvinterblot.
Unleashed
1996
Metal Side #3
Unleashed, Where No Life Dwells era, 1991 Johnny Hedlund, Tomas Olsson, Anders Schultz, Fredrik Lindgren
Unleashed
Nihilist
1989
Eternal Torment Zine #7
UNLEASHED “Odalheim”, LP 2012 (Eleventh raid for the Death Metal Viking Hammer Battalion : “Hammers of Thor held high, We stand victorious, watching our enemies die !”)
“Fled the guns blasting death Through forest, field and sea Decimated to extinction The last of our kin yet free Through a darkened land, once so proud and grand Gathering the battalions, gathering the battalions...”