Swedish Metal

Sweden’s Valkyrja Signs with Metalblade – Re-releases Debut

Valkyrja, the Swedish black metal act in the vein of others like Naglfar, has signed a two record deal with Metal Blade Records according to their Myspace page. They are currently in the studio recording their second album, while the first one (originally released on Northern Silence Productions) will be re-issued by Metal Blade on […]

Shining Enters Studio to Begin VII

Well, apparently Shining is wasting no time with releasing a new record. This probably has to do with the fact that VI/Klagopsalmer has been such a long time coming–but also, as I reported the other day, they signed with Indie Recordings and they probably want to get right underway. Anyway, the band has updated its […]

Death Maze – Prodigy of Death Review

Death Maze – Prodigy of Death Rating: 3.5/5.0 – Very good Label: Unsigned Website: myspace.com/deathmazeswe Few unsigned bands in Sweden have been getting the kind of press that UmeÃ¥’s Death Maze has gotten in the last 6 months or so. There are probably a few reasons for this, firstly, there are a lot of unsigned […]

Shining – VI/Klagopsalmer delayed… AGAIN!? And other news…

Osmose has released another statement about the new Shining record that we’re all waiting for. SHINING album is delayed again and again from the factory…We’ve got a new delivery date now who is set up for May 30th, 2009, while we are not 100% sure if all will work out good from the printing company […]

Shining VI/Klagopsalmer delayed… again

According to a very helpful commenter on this blog I was actually given more information on Shining’s long-awaited record VI/Klagopsalmer. Here’s the press release from Osmose Productions: SHINING : due to technical printing problems with the booklet the CD version might be available for the 23rd. Same problem with the vinyl version excepted [sic] we […]

Pain of Salvation – The Second Death of Pain of Salvation

Pain of Salvation – The Second Death of Pain of Salvation Rating: 3.0/5.0 – Live records don’t get much better than just Good Label: Inside Out Music Band Websites: painofsalvation.com | myspace.com/painofsalvation Pain of Salvation is definitely the modern darling of the progressive rock/metal scene for a reason. Their intense musicianship, varied work and extraordinarily […]

Fejd – Storm Review

Fejd – Storm Review

Napalm Records has long been one of my favorite labels, putting out a lot of bands that I really dig (especially the Vintersorg/Otyg/Fission stuff), and they’ve recently taken a hard dive into folk metal and other genres more of this type. So I wasn’t surprised, but I was particularly excited, when I read that Sweden’s Fejd (pronounced like the English word “fade”) had been signed to Napalm as I had earlier discovered their demos which had been put up for free at the Free Metal Albums blog. I had discovered the demo “I en tid som var…” and had gotten really excited the band, and was frankly surprised that they hadn’t been picked up by anyone. So as you can suspect from this introduction, I was eagerly anticipating Storm—the band’s newest release.