Swedish group Coldworker are on the verge of releasing their third full-length album “The Doomsayer’s Call”, their first record for independent label Listenable, following two consecutive releases on Relapse Records.

It took the band almost four years to come up with the follow-up to their second album “Rotting Paradise”, so I must start by asking if this was a difficult record to piece together?

“It might appear so if you look at the release dates of the last albums. “The Doomsayer’s Call” has been finished awaiting its release for a whole year so if you subtract that, it’s suddenly “only” three years… We’ve had a couple of slow years, but once we started to write the songs for the album it was done without any complications. We might have put a little bit more time into the song writing, though.”

“A New Era” is the lead-in track from the album, and from the significance of the title I gather you’re issuing a statement claiming this is a new chapter in the band’s career right?

“No, it was actually just a coincidence. The idea to put “A New Era” as the opening track came quite late in the process. It was the last song written for the album and I think most of us wanted it to be the closing track of the album, but then it was suggested as the exact opposite. It’s a daring choice for a band who blasts most of the time to start of a new album with a slow and menacing song when the obvious choice would have been to start off with a bang, but we wanted something different this time. I guess that a lot of people will draw the same conclusions as you, but it is just a title and no hidden meaning.”

Read More »

Having traded US cult label Relapse for French independent Listenable Records, Swedes Coldworker figured out this would be a good opportunity to give an additional kick to their songwriting and performance skills and implement more rhythmic variance into their death-grind sound.

Not that there was anything wrong with it, their previous two releases, “The Contaminated Void” and “Rotting Paradise”, offered some pretty intense and pulverising moments that could rival with the likes of Phobia, Rotten Sound and Kill the Client.

Anyway, if the intention for album number three was to create a more dynamic and individual record then, mission accomplished ‘cause “The Doomsayer's Call" is their most complete and diverse record to date without any doubts. Whereas previous works saw the Swedes stepping hard on the pedal to create maximum aural wreckage, this new record sees Coldworker delivering more straightforward and slow-burning riffs that provides great contrast with the high speed grind attack. The aptly titled lead-off track, “A New Era” with its slow and infectious simplicity proves that “The Doomsayer's Call" doesn’t merely regurgitate old ideas, but introduces a variety of tempos, rhythms and song structures that gives each song a character of their own. Following themes, “The Reprobate”, “The Glass Envelope” and “Flesh World” feature a perfect balance between relentless sonic violence and rhythmically engaging brutality, displaying exactly how good death metal should sound like in this day and age. (7.8)

David Alexandre

Band info: www.coldworker.com

Label info: www.listenable.net

Read More »