Year: 2000
Total Time: 43:34
Label: Listenable Records

After a very good debut album, with their sound balancing on the edge of N.W.O.S.D.M., Sweden’s SOILWORK return with “The Chainheart Machine” album, in which they have settled to a far more personal sound.

Starting from the artwork and ending to the powerful and clean production, this release seems to be analysed into detail. The song compositions are “swimming” into Thrash/Death Metal waters, with very aggressive and fast tempos which remind me the good old days of AT THE GATES and CARCASS. There are many parts that sound like newer bands, like DIMMU BORGIR and ARCH ENEMY. Extra detail has been given to the guitar themes and to Peter Wichers’ solos too, who, apart from being a great composer, is a unique guitar player! In my opinion, the guitars are the highlight of this album! Generally speaking, all of SOILWORK’s rhythm section kicks @ss! On the other side, Björn “Speed” Strid has a very characteristic sound when he screams and very good performance during the songs.

About the artwork now, on the front sleeve of “The Chainheart Machine” we find a humanlike machine, obviously wanting to introduce us to the modern sound of SOILWORK. On the back side we find a photo of the band with a very generic background that looks like a movie poster.

To sum up, I would like to say that SOILWORK from Sweden come back improved, playing N.W.O.S.D.M. in a more “thrashy” way. They definitely deserve the attention of anyone loyal to the genre!

Rating: 8/10
Editor: Alexandros Soultatos
Translation/Rendering in English: Theodoros Apergis
Related Link: SOILWORK – Official Page