Soilwork – The Panic Broadcast (2010)

Ever since “Natural Born Chaos”, the real Soilwork died for us. However, the band has been constantly improving in terms of their ‘new’ Metalcore/Modern Metal/Rock sound. And with the return of Peter Wichers to the band in 2008, they are closer to being very good again. With “The Panic Broadcast” the band combines all the previously mentioned genres in a very interesting way not sounding extremely Metalcore-ish, not sounding too much like a rock band either.

We are sure that Soilwork will gain a considerable amount of followers in the USA and markets where Metalcore is highly accepted with “The Panic Broadcast”. The band’s latest release is very well designed to fit into so many categories, that most people will end up liking this release (except for old Soilwork fans). Using a wide variety of vocals, Björn Strid does the Modern Metal screams very well and the clean Metalcore-ish sections even better.

Yes, there are breakdowns in this release and yes, for us non-believers of Metalcore will make us want to cry, however, they are very well done and covered up by powerful guitar melodies. Much like As I Lay Dying made us open up our ears to give better appreciation to Metalcore bands, we must say that Soilwork’s “The Panic Broadcast” is another release that we find well made and the annoying shouts and breakdowns are not as annoying as one would expect (we might be getting ‘old’ or going ‘soft’).

The guitar work is the main driving force behind “The Panic Broadcast”, and Peter Wichers return makes a huge improvement on this album over “Sworn to a Great Divide”, the band’s previous release. There are brilliant solos and well crafted melodic sections that sound excellent for a Modern Melo-Death release, no quite the ‘traditional Swedish DM sound, but good enough.

Like we mentioned before, the vocals are very diverse and switch around a lot. We have the traditional clean Metalcore sound in tracks like “Two Lives Worth Of Reckoning”, and the we have the ‘harsh’ screams through the album. We also have some softer less harmonious clean vocals that are also persistent through the album, and that sound excellent. We like all this shuffling of styles, since it makes the music more dynamic and less one-dimensional than most Metalcore bands.

We can imagine tons of people ripping on Soilwork once more, but they just need to grow up and accept they are a different band. For us, the band has been making great effort into finding their new sound and with “The Panic Broadcast”, they are very close to getting it completely right. The musicians in the band are excellent, and with Peter back on guitars they sound so much better than in their last release. Hopefully they keep getting better over time.

Release: July 13th, 2010

Country: Sweden