Soilwork - Verkligheten (2LP) - Orange Vinyl

Soilwork’s Verkligheten arrived on 11 January 2019 through Nuclear Blast, a sharp reset after a few years of line-up turbulence. The title translates to Reality, which suits a record that stares down ageing, loss and perseverance with clear eyes. It is the first full-length to feature drummer Bastian Thusgaard after Dirk Verbeuren left for Megadeth in 2016, and you can feel that fresh energy running through these songs. It is still classic Soilwork at heart, but the edges are cleaner and the hooks cut deeper.

What hits first is the balance. Björn Strid’s vocal range has long been the band’s not-so-secret weapon, and here he flips from serrated screams to honeyed melodies without showboating. Sven Karlsson’s keys do that Soilwork thing where they slip in under the guitars and lift the choruses, never flashy, always supportive. The guitars of David Andersson and Sylvain Coudret stay precise, riffing with a hard melodic death metal bite but happy to veer into rock swagger when the songs ask for it. Thusgaard locks it all together with drumming that is athletic yet tidy, leaning on groove rather than pure speed, which gives the songs room to breathe.

“Stålfågel” was the right choice for an early single. It drives on a bright synth motif and a huge chorus that sounds built for festival fields, yet the verse riffs still snarl. “Full Moon Shoals” pushes harder, almost thrashy in the verses before it pivots to a chorus that sticks in your head for days. “Witan” taps a slightly proggier seam with a classy mid-song turn that shows how confidently this line-up handles dynamics. “Needles and Kin” brings a welcome cameo from Amorphis frontman Tomi Joutsen, whose deep timbre sits against Strid’s voice in a way that feels both unexpected and perfectly natural. It is one of the album’s heaviest moments, but the melody still wins.

Across the record there is a thread of Scandinavian melancholy, the kind that feels more reflective than morose. The short ambient intro sets a frost-bitten mood, and the lyrics lean into themes of time, reconciliation and the strange peace that can come after a storm. The songwriting is tight, no bloat, and the sequencing keeps things moving. You get the sense of a band taking stock of who they are after twenty-plus years, then choosing clarity over clutter. If The Living Infinite was about scale and The Ride Majestic chased darker majesty, Verkligheten is about focus. It is lean, melodic and oddly uplifting in spite of its subject matter.

The sound is modern but not plastic. Guitars have punch without losing grit. The kick drum hits hard, yet the cymbals never sandblast the top end. Most importantly, the vocals sit right in the pocket so the choruses feel like release rather than a radio grab. That attention to balance makes it a rewarding spin on a turntable. If you are chasing Soilwork vinyl, Verkligheten vinyl in particular does justice to the breadth of the mix, with the quieter textures of the intro and the more atmospheric passages blooming nicely. The artwork scales well on a sleeve too, which always helps when you are flipping through a stack.

Since release, these songs have slotted neatly into the live set. When “Stålfågel” or “Full Moon Shoals” hits, the floor starts moving, and the older material around them suddenly sounds refreshed. That says plenty about the staying power here. Verkligheten is not a reinvention, it is a sharpening of tools the band already had, delivered with a clarity that makes the choruses feel inevitable rather than engineered.

If you are the kind who likes to buy Soilwork records online, this one is an easy recommendation, and it sits well alongside other Soilwork albums on vinyl from the Nuclear Blast era. For readers hunting around vinyl records Australia, check your favourite Melbourne record store or the usual local webshops before you import. However you get it, give it a front-to-back listen rather than cherry-picking the singles. The flow is part of the charm, and by the time “Needles and Kin” rolls around, you will hear the record click into place. Reality might be a heavy title, but Soilwork turn it into something resilient and strangely hopeful.