Single Slam – Feverish by Soilwork (Nuclear Blast)

Strike while the iron is hot seems to be Soilwork’s mantra this year as their latest 2019 release, the first of a trilogy of singles, Feverish arrives.

After 4 years waiting for new music, the Swedish melodeath giants released the album Verkligheten just at the start of 2019. It seemed to inject new life and energy into the band and became a favourite Soilwork album of mine too. Read our thoughts on that here. The band then headed out on tour eventually landing on the main stage at Bloodstock Festival. We caught up with the band there.

Not long after they released a new EP containing rarities called Underworld which just happened to have my favourite ever Soilwork song on it with In This Master’s Tale. Read about that EP here. Now, we have yet more new music from the band with the single, Feverish. One of a trilogy of singles themed around, according to the band, “celebrating the Babylonian Death Goddesses that once made the world a more Feverish and exciting place.”

The trilogy of singles, with B sides, will drop over the next 5 months. This first has the new song, Feverish, on it alongside a revamped version of the song, Stålfågel, featuring Arch Enemy’s Alissa White-Gluz.

Feverish is just shy of 6 minutes long and has a bit of an 80’s vibe to it with it’s synthy start. It soon settles into a catchy, bouncy riff that should get your head nodding. There is a nice mix of harsh and clean vocals with plenty of backing vocals too. A simple but catchy chorus works well. The 80’s vibe comes back in for an instrumental section that leads into a decent solo with some heavy rhythm pounded from the drums and bass. There is a nice little violin outro too, though it doesn’t really fit the overall song too much.

The revamped version of Stålfågel is still pretty solid. It’s such a good song anyway and thankfully Soilwork haven’t really messed with it at all. A few little additional touches and layers come through from Alissa White-Gluz on the additional vocals and add even more depth but otherwise it’s the same great song again.

Really the release is about Feverish and that is a really good song. One thing that has been apparent over this busy year for the band is that they appear to be consciously trying to make their music more appealing to the masses. Less about the straight up melodic death metal of old and a bit more open and arena filling. That definitely shines through on Feverish with it’s extra ideas, 80’s vibe and more simple but catchy riffs. Time will tell regarding how far the band go with this change or how well it works for them but for the time being they seem to have a nice balance between having more mass appeal and keeping plenty of heaviness. In what has been a crazy year for Soilwork thus far, Feverish is another strong song that should keep their name on the tips of tongues everywhere.

Feverish is available now on all the usual streaming platforms.

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