Soilwork and Darkane – an epic metalsouth collaboration!

Posted on 23/03/2014 by pnille61

Great many apologies from metalsouth on not actively promoting the fantastic tour these two bands just have finished in Europe. We can only hope that this collaboration with two of the finest representatives from the region will be taken up again. Help us out to inspire Soilwork and Darkane to do a gig nearby. Why not at the Big scene at Tivoli here in Helsingborg or at KB in Malmö. To have followed the bands via their respective Facebook posts have only raised the happy wish of seeing them together close by.

To read about not only fantastic performances, but also stories like the one when the Master drummer Dirk Verbeuren in Soilwork fell ill for the concert in Bristol March 11 and Peter Wildoer intensly rehearsed the 16 Soilwork songs to perform firstly the Darkane show and thereafter Soilworks’ and as I understand with an excellence that only he can. It would have been extremely interesting to compare the differences in sound when one of the best metal drummers in the world temporarily was replaced by another world class drummer. You know your stuff when 16 songs are rehearsed and performed in such a short time. Congratulations to all who experienced this classic show and by the way…it’s great to see Dirk back on track again!!

Soilworks first recording of a live DVD in Helsinki March 21 is also creating some happy expectations. Floor Jansen from Nightwish partcipates. We haven’t been able to find out when the DVD will be released, but our focus is on the market!!

The next encounter of these bands and their band members will be at the Tivoli’s ‘A World of Music Festival’ the upcoming weekend when we can see Björn Strid and David Andersson from Soilwork performing with A Night Flight Orchestra on Saturday March 29. More on that under Upcoming events.

A Metalsouth Year – Dark and Light!

Posted on 31/12/2013 by pnille61

The past year 2013 has music wise and with a metalsouth perspective been a very strong and positive year. Really good albums have been released by bands from the region and many fantastic and forever memorable live acts have taken place in towns locally and on reasonble distance. The festival Metaltown in Gothenburg in July was a prime fiesta! Bad news can now be read that 2014 will be skipped and full planning is instead in process for 2015. The main reason is that the coming summer will be pretty strong on hard rock and heavy metal events in southern Sweden and Metaltown has for that reason without real success found strong headline acts. Still it’s great to read that the planning is set for 2015 and all the best luck to all working with the festival. A recommendation is hereby given to all interested metalheads to propose bands on the Metaltown website. My own immediate idea would, naturally, be Soilwork (again), Darkane, Black Temple and Free Fall.

The darkest moment of the year was when my Aunt passed away during Spring. She has now joined my father-in-law, my cousins and many more dearly missed friends and relatives. My strong belief is that they all have a really good time together…wherever their souls are…celebrating a real New Year’s Party!!

As previously described, my Aunt’s funeral was very inspirational in the sense that her way of planning for the music during service made me think about the appropriate music for my own. In her memory should the lyrics from the fabulous Soilwork ‘The Living Infinite II’ be quoted, and let’s say that a few lines would here be perfectly placed:

Music & Lyrics: Strid

“…the feelings you carry won’t ever die, they’re one with eternity, the tears you’ve shed, the words you’ve said, are all a part of a constant realm, wuthering emotions, turn into mindful dust, the reality you’ve known, has always fed your trust…”

Please, find below some words on the most recommended Album releases from a metalsouth perspective. It’s been a great year with great albums, songs and live acts, which have lifted my life to wuthering heights!

A Happy New 2014 Year from Metalsouth in Helsingborg, Sweden!! Get ready for the PARTY!!

Merry Metal Christmas!

Posted on 22/12/2013 by pnille61

Best wishes of a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Metalsouth, Helsingborg, Sweden!!

Darkane and Dark Tranquillity – Guides to the light through darkness!

Posted on 17/12/2013 by pnille61

When having confirmed by all the television weather men and women that the storm ‘Sven’ left our southern region to continue up north a feeling of great relief filled us all. Living in a weather stable area with four concrete seasons we now also face the strength of an affected nature and devastating storms arriving on a more frequent basis. ‘Sven’ was nasty and all the sympathy is hereby directed to all effected property owners.

The feeling of great relief promoted the possibility to still go to Kulturbolaget (KB) in Malmö on Sunday December 8, to listen to and support first of all Darkane and have a personally new live experience with Dark Tranquillity from Gothenburg, Sweden.

‘A picture is worth a thousands words’ and I will hereby try to forward the greatness of firstly Darkane, band members previously presented here in an earlier post, and the very experienced Dark Tranquillity. Band members to be presented below. Massive darkness may be the impression, but the feeling of happiness was concrete leaving Malmö close to midnight after Harkla (start), Darkane (support) and Dark Tranquillity (headline). Darkness in music gives light in life!!

Darkane at KB – Sunday December 8, 2013 – Images and Impressions

Posted on 17/12/2013 by pnille61

Andreas Sydow and Lawrence Mackrory again excellently doing Chaos vs. Order from Expanding Senses (2002, Metal Mind Productions/Nuclear Blast Gmbh).

Darkane and Dark Tranquillity at KB, Malmö!

Posted on 09/12/2013 by pnille61

The storm called ‘Sven’, which on the latest Friday December 6 suprised all of us southern Swedes with its strenght and terrible effects on the landside closest to the sea. It continued with its aftermath on the Saturday to ease off during the Sunday. To go south to Malmö on the Sunday December 8 was therefore possible and the goal was, of course, Kulturbolaget in Malmö to see Darkane firstly and then Dark Tranquillity from Gothenburg, Sweden. To be there was great and we thank ‘the leaving Sven’ for giving us the possibility to experience a still and really stormy and aggressive evening with these two bands also supported initially by Harkla. Due to to a business trip this week ‘metalsouth’ will postpone its posts from the gig until the coming weekend. BUT, it will be worthwhile waiting for. BECAUSE, if we can forward at least a small percentage of the great joy we felt at KB, it will be a success!! More to come!

Soilwork – ‘death’ at its best!

Posted on 11/11/2013 by pnille61

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)

Odyssey/Black Temple – a working victory!

Posted on 28/10/2013 by pnille61

We came there to see Odyssey perform in a name change event. ‘It’s the fourth time we change names and each time it feels better’, Jonas Pedersen stated. Odyssey is now ‘Black Temple’. I can see the identity problem of the name Odyssey with a number of bands with this name all over the world. To search for Odyssey songs at streaming suppliers takes some time to hit correctly. ‘Black Temple’ as a name sounds right, the band logo is again stylish and if the sound is better…? Well, it was cruel, hard and noisy as Odyssey and Black Temple continues to work hard and collects another victory this evening.

Marcus Witold Östensson (guitars), Jonas Pedersen – (bass, vocals) and Jesper Karlsson (drums) give it all they have. Body and soul. This ‘hard noise rock’ gave me body ache like the worst gym session. I haven’t had my head ringing and my body aching from a live performance like this in a long time. Songs like ‘Wicked Witch’ and Abysmal Despair’ from the CD with the same name (2012) gives me the feeling of just wanting more.

More is to come…and to have the rumour confirmed that Black Temple will be the supporting act to Bombus on their European Tour during Nov-Dec this year only makes this heavy metal weekend even more perfect. Let my head keep ringing to rememer this great weekend! Another t-shirt reference must also be made here. I could only happily notice that Jesper Karlsson on drums started the concert in a Frank Zappa t-shirt (picture of ‘Chunga’s Revenge’, 1970), which triggers ideas and bridging over to other personally interesting subjects for this blog. Many thanks to Black Temple and the best of good luck for the coming tour in Europe!!

Darkane dominates!

Posted on 23/10/2013 by pnille61

On Saturday October 5, Darkane was back on stage at the Metal Bar (Tivoli) in Helsingborg. Five years have passed since the band released an album and to be back on stage to play most of the songs from the Sinister Supremacy release from this year put some pressure on the band members and some great expectations in us fans who were there to meet Darkane live again.

The album has been met by great reviews and personally I think it’s the best of the six albums they have released. The introduction of the new beer ‘Darkale’ from the micro brewery Helsingborgs Bryggeri was another reason to be at the Metal Bar in good time before Darkane was to perform. The Metal Bar opened at 20.00 with a promise to have Darkane on stage at 22.00. We were there already at 19.30 in order to secure some space in this smaller establishment housing approximately 200 people. Too early we were there, but only to be met by band members Peter Wildoer (drums) and Christofer Malmström (guitars) shaking our hands and wishing us most welcome. What a welcome and what a great feeling of being really close to the band’s music! I have followed their career via the CD’s, DVD, reading articles and reviews and here I am discussing the new beer with Peter Wildoer, to which Darkane has lent part of its name and logo type. An irrelevant comment here may be that the Darkale beer was most drinkable an can be a huge success.

Darkane dominates!! At the regular Darkane slow intro with Peter Wildoer entering the stage, sitting down at the drum set giving a deep sigh we can see that some thoughts are there on how this will go. BUT, from the first strike Darkane is back and the one hour performance is incredibly intense and hits us in our faces massively.

Finally, I must also mention and thank Klas Ideberg (guitars), Jörgen Löfberg (bass) and Lawrence Mackrory (vocals) in this great performance. Lawrence Mackrory is back again on vocals. He did vocals on Darkane’s debut album ‘Rusted Angel’ (1999) and with this fantastic comeback we can only hope that he will be a stable factor of the sound that the band currently gives. His t-shirt stating ‘Nihilist’ directs our thoughts up north to Stockholm where Nihilist towards the end of the 1980’s (1987-1989) set the base for the current band Entombed, which surely will be mentioned later at this blog.

A big bonus was given to us when the previous Darkane singer Andreas Sydow (currently with Riot Horse) entered the stage and did Chaos vs. Order together with Lawrence Mackrory.Thank you to Darkane for a great performance and we look forward to seeing you again at Kulturbolaget, in Malmö, on December 8, 2013.

(Inspirational articles and reviews: Close-Up Magazine #152/David Noaksson; Helsingborgs Dagblad, Oct. 7, 2013/Hannes Grönberg)

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Metalsouth in Helsingborg, Sweden.

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