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After ten years of hard work and five full-length albums (this is number six), Soilwork is one of the lucky bands who can make a living of their music. After having revealed some softer nu-metal tendencies on the two previous releases they found their way into an audience where they were virtually unknown before. With "Stabbing The Drama" the band is not turning their back on their new-found fans but they move a little closer to their past and a more aggressive edge. They are definitely not back to recording another "Steelbath Suicide" or "The Chainheart Machine" but I personally appreciate the direction where they have headed for this release. If you want ballads then there are other bands who handle that area much better than a band such as Soilwork. They should not dwell where they do not belong in my opinion and this time they definitely don't. This is the kind of music they master and they master it better than most others. The guitar riffs and solos are perfectly balanced, the production is top notch (a bit too polished at times but that's the way it is today), Speed displays some of the finest contrasting vocals ever and their French session drummer Dirk Verbeuren (Scarve) works his drumkit with extraordinary skills.
A guy who is often forgotten is keyboard player Sven Karlsson but he is an essential element in the band's sound as the keyboard layers add a very rich background to Soilwork's music, making the band sound even more powerful. While energetic was the best word to describe their music on the first couple of albums with I would say that powerful is a better suited and more descriptive word today. Nuclear Blast still wants the world to believe that Soilwork is about melodic death metal but that is completely untrue. In fact, they are much closer to the more open-minded American metalcore bands right now who have been heavily influenced by the Swedish melodic death metal bands. I think in some aspects "Stabbing The Drama" is comparable to In Flames' "Colony" album although it is more straight-forward, less melodic and has a more extreme vocal approach. "Stabbing The Drama" should mark the real break-through for Soilwork and even though I believe that this is one of the best album they have produced so far I still prefer to listen to the first albums in the long run. Somehow the essentials of a talented band are always best captured on their early releases.
| Tracklist |
| 1. Stabbing The Drama |
| 2. One With The Flies |
| 3. Weapon Of Vanity |
| 4. The Crestfallen |
| 5. Nerve |
| 6. Stalemate |
| 7. Distance |
| 8. Observation Slave |
| 9. Fate In Motion |
| 10. Blind Eye Halo |
| 11. If Possible |
: 42.40
| Buy other Soilwork albums |
