Zenith
After four years, Swedish heavy Metal band Enforcer release their fifth studio album, ‘Zenith’ and it has been well and truly worth the wait. Enforcer started back in 2004 and they have been a Heavy Metal mainstay act ever since.
The band features Olof Wikstrand on vocals and guitars, Jonas Wikstrand on drums, piano & keyboards, Tobias Lindqvist on bass and new guitarist Jonathan Nordwall. What ensues is quite possibly their best work to date. It is a project that, from beginning to end, took nearly two and a half years to complete.
The album is a roller coaster. Fans of fast paced heavy metal won’t be disappointed, ‘Thunder and Hell’ and ‘Searching for You’ will satisfy your need for speed, however there is much, much more to this album than just speed. Even the afore mentioned ‘Thunder and Hell’ has a little surprise for us at the end of the song. A thundercrash, followed by a baroque style outro! That’s one way to change the pace.
The albums opening track ‘Die for the Devil’ is an epic masterpiece. With a vocal line, that the metal bands of the 80’s would be proud of, this straight away feels bigger than anything we’ve heard before. With a fist in the air punching rhythm, this will be a future anthem for Enforcer. You can’t help but get into this song, and by the end you’re singing along to the chorus.
I said this album was a rollercoaster, well cue ‘Regrets’, beginning with a very Beethoven sounding piano introduction, almost ‘Moonlight Sonata’. The piano continues as Olaf’s vocals come in, they are impeccable. Just having a single piano backing him, we hear just how staggering his voice is. Even when the guitar inevitably kicks in, the focus is still on the vocals. Then comes a wonderful guitar solo, played with such passion and befitting the song, not a solo for solo’s sake, which happens in so much metal these days. This is songwriting at its peak.
I have to mention the near seven minute final song on the album, ‘Ode to Death’. This begins very slowly, it is a brooding, tense affair that slowly but surely builds up, until the end of the song we are unleashed to yet another chugging metal anthem.
This album has so many high points, it is difficult to pick one. But, what it does confirm is that Enforcer are much more than just another Speed metal band. They have drawn their influences for this album from right across the musical spectrum and I for one love it. This is an album that you will keep listening to, again and again!
