The Living Infinite I (Music & Lyrics: Strid)

‘Surrender…Will there still be a place for me to grow?

Transcend me beyond this source we thought we knew

Like the river kissed this darkened sea

The shelter has to be somewhere beneath

Let me go…To where the purity comes alive

Drown me…In the living infinite, let me go’

My old Auntie died this past spring and she had prepared her funeral in the white archive, which is rather common these days. She had selected the hymns, the Reverend and the food to be served at the traditional coffee gathering after the ceremonial service. Her fine funeral made me think a lot about how I would like to have my own funeral. Hopefully, there’s still some time to go, but, of course, it would be nice to have selected at least the music to be played at the service. I have found the initial text lines of the first title song of this year’s album release from Soilwork, The Living Infinite, so strong that it is today my natural choice for the opening of my own funeral service. To have the church accept Soilwork live fully geared up and at full blast may be dreaming of the unreachable, but to have the song played from a CD player would be almost as fine and strong. The last alternative would be if Soilwork over the years (before it’s time) have produced an acoustic version to be played over some strong speakers. The words of this opus are so strong that they simply must be in the room.

Soilwork, at KB in Malmö on last Saturday November 9, 2013, was a tight group having over the past year done numerous gigs all over the world’s different continents, opening up with ‘This Momentary Bliss’ and keeping an intense one hour forty minutes enormous party in the place for us being present. My high expectations mainly originating from one of Metaltown’s best performances last summer were completely met. I could also happily find the review in this morning’s local Helsingborgs Dagblad and understand that a more technical analysis of the performance was of a really high mark. The only disappointment of the evening was that too many metalheads out there missed this wonderful opportunity to see live one of the world’s greatest Melodic Death Metal bands. I would guess that at least a hundred more people would have easily found a space on the floor of KB.

Some wonderful news…I can only hope it will become real…comes from Stefan Lindqvist, who has written an article in Helsingborgs Dagblad on November 8, 2013, referring to an interview with Björn Strid that there are plans for Soilwork and Darkane to go on tour together. To see these two bands with members having roots in the region south of Helsingborg play on the same concert would be absolutely too good to be true!! The side project of Björn Strid and David Andersson ‘The Night Flight Orchestra’ is also worthwhile to listen into. Although, they will not qualify at my funeral, if you see what I mean!!

To follow the tradition of introducing band members, Soilwork is:

Björn ‘Speed’ Strid (Vocals), Dirk Verbeuren (Drums), Ola Flink (Bass), Sven Karlsson (Keyboards), Sylvain Coudret (Guitars) and David Andersson (Guitars). To say that this band is the prime representative of ‘Metalsouth’ is an understatement, since they originate from Helsingborg, south of Helsingborg, Holland and France. Thanks for the greatest show, which is among the top three performances on my list!!

We also direct our thank you to Keep of Kalessin (Norway) and Deals Death (Gothenburg) for their great supporting performances!

(Inspirational articles and Reviews: Helsingborgs Dagblad, Stefan Lindqvist, Nov. 8 and Nov. 11)