You need this band and you need this album in your life. Swedish Death Candy are psychedelic, yes, but not many bands can boast to be able to combine that with crunching heaviness, melodic power and mind-bending dynamics. They surpass their peers and they are about to prove this with the announcement of their self-titled debut album. To celebrate the band will be taking their stunning live show on the road with a slew of live dates including a UK Tour through November.
Their eponymous debut album is full of abstract themes but keeps things rooted in the literal. Pulling influences from Black Sabbath to Queens of The Stone Age via Can and The Beatles to Oasis. These influences are pulled together by the expert craftsmanship at work throughout the album from the rockier opening edge of the first three tunes ‘Last Dream’, ‘Broken Engrams’ and ‘Love You Already’ then onto ‘Avalanche’ which lyrically is about saving people from an avalanche in the alps an experience singer Louie actually lived through but musically employs trippy synths and reverbed vocals to stunning effect to aurally capture the euphoria of the rescue. ‘When All is Gone’ is lead by a riff so powerful it could of been co-written by Jimmy Page and John Squire in a fantasy practice room in 1974 and cements the band’s songwriting chops in a long-form classical sense. After a brief respite, the band hurtle back into full riff mode with ‘Living Your Life Away’ and ‘Pearl’, utilising every tool on the pedal board to blow your mind. Finally, closing out the album is the longest and most ambitious track ‘Liquorice Parts 2 & 3’.
Serving as a sequel to the band’s first EP Liquorice which ebbs and flows from beautiful soundscapes to crunching riffs. Singer Louis describes the song as; ‘About a character who wants to be the personification of the sun, because everyone loves the sun. The second verse is about their journey to becoming powerful like the sun and the choices they’ll make along the way. Pt. III is said character being granted his wish, becoming the sun and going insane with the power and destroying the world.’ A fitting way to close out an album based on the concept of turning a negative experience into a positive one and the cyclical nature of that cycle. So do you take the red pill and go further down the rabbit hole with us or do you take the bill pill and stay in reality with them? We would heavily suggest the former and come into the world of Swedish Death Candy, you won’t be disappointed.