Soilwork - Stålfågel

When it comes to music, there are a handful of truly eternal questions. Does music need to have a point to be considered true art? Is there truly a limited amount of songs that can be written as there are a finite amount of notes? Is Perfect Day actually about heroin? While plenty of answers are ejected forcefully from the mediums more vocal contributors for those, the question of whether a band has to stay true to their original identity will never be solved as easily as your friend insisting that Perfect Day is definitely about wandering around New York after taking loads of heroin.  

While identity and quality over quantity debates rage, Swedish melodeath giants Soilwork have been shipping out monster records for nearly three decades now with almost zero signs of diminishing returns. Which is frankly absurd, really, when you consider both who they’re up against and how many of those bands had to adapt big time to survive. Not that Soilwork haven’t undergone their own shifts and changes – there’s definite later years influence from lead vocalist Björn Strid’s Night Flight Orchestra side project, who are also fantastic by the way. But the band remain one of the most consistent acts to ever come out of the cold North and we could have picked literally any of their songs to feature for our Rock Song of the Week pick and it would be just as good. 

As for what we did pick - a real melodeath stomper with a delightfully proggy undercurrent at its heart, Stålfågel is going to get you moving in just the right way this fine Friday. With a music video that is as delightfully sci-fi campy as it is a bit shonky, this is a track that you are going to want to blast at just under whatever volume allows your ears to survive a second listen. We need you back next week, after all! Plus, our sign language vocabulary only has two or three rude gestures in it.