The best Anthrax album they never recorded.
Although much has been written of Anthrax’s 2011 comeback, ‘Svölk ’Em All’ is the best Anthrax album they never recorded. Norwegian five-piece Svölk are the self-proclaimed – and possibly only – purveyors of what they call ‘bear metal’ which seems to require facial hair, lumberjack shirts and unfeasibly large choppers (check out the promo pics), and a healthy obsession with good ol’ fashioned heavy metal. ‘Svölk ‘Em All’ – the clue’s in the title – is a bit of a throwback to days gone by and features a delightful blend of Scott Ian and friends’ best in-your-face riffing and some of, say, Sabbath’s more downbeat and doomy moments with a twist of Kyuss for good measure. It’s hard, it’s heavy, and it’s extremely good; so much so that, for what it’s worth, I’ve stuck it straight into my end of year Top Five.
What you actually get here is a re-issue of the band’s 2009 debut album, released for a worldwide audience through Napalm, coupled with their 2005 ‘Beast Unleashed’ three-track EP. These EP tracks (tacked onto the end of the CD) are a little less refined in both performance and direction but give an idea of where the grizzly boys were coming from in their early days; best of the bunch is probably ‘Time For The Dying’ with its workmanlike riff and Clutch-lite bounce.
The album itself kicks off with ‘52’, whose ukulele-stomp intro gives way to an awesome riff and an adrenaline rush equivalent to mainlining ten espressos. An immediate attention-grabber with a twin-guitar middle eight and soaring vocals ‘52’ is a metal classic in the making and marks out the band’s territory beautifully. After that it’s TKO after TKO as vocalist Knut Erik Solhaug, guitarists Jengt Castral and Martin Østerhaug, bassist Halstein Røyseland and drummer Jørgen Seger Haave bait their bear traps with some delicious slabs of raw metal. The swagger of ‘Miss Alcohol’, the twists of ‘Sweet Agony’, the express-train riffage of ‘Inferno’… Time and again the point of reference returns to Anthrax’s ‘Sound Of White Noise’ and if you liked that album then you’ll certainly get off on this one. By way of compliment, incidentally, the biog likens Solhaug to Glenn Danzig, although I don’t hear it myself and furthermore it might be doing him a disservice to liken him to Evil Elvis: there’s more to his voice than that.
Invigorating and exciting, ‘Svölk ’Em All’ is a great album, and no mistake. Will it change your life? I doubt it. Will it make the world a better place? Certainly not. Will it make you leap around like a loon and put a smile on your face as wide as the Dartford Tunnel and a crick in your neck as deep as the San Andreas Fault? Yes, it will. Trust me on this. Long live Bear Metal!
John Tucker
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