By Bona Pjarren
Fredlös came together in the Spring of 2021, rising from the ashes of previous musical adventures, based in the country around Nortallje, northeast of Stockholm and united by a deep sense of their historical roots and a love of dark sounds. The band is Robert Lindgren (bass), guitarists Tomas Karlson, Fredrik Danielsson and Alex Hellid (yes, from Enslaved), lead singer Liv Hope and Victor Dahlin on keyboards. We have to assume that the drums are either by a session musician or, the gods forbid, programmed!
Opening track ‘Våt varm jord’ is a raw slab of metal with driving guitar chords and blast beating drums. It drives forward with majesty accentuated with strings and pipes. It has some nice extreme vocals to compliment Liv’s voice. ‘Otto’ is introduced with ominous ambience before a melancholy violin take up the refrain. ‘Otto’ has a real doom feel to it but then lifts into something resplendent. It is a song full of light and shade.
‘Farsot’ has a similar treatment to the introduction to ‘Otto’. It is a storming metal track that doesn’t really deliver anything different, I have heard loads of albums in a very similar style. ‘Missväxt’ is yet another track written to a formula: ambient intro, main body (verse/chorus); okay so it didn’t have the instrumental drop this time but still felt very same old same old.
‘Fredlös’ comes straight in with the main riff and to be fair does have a bit more excitement to it. Driving trem-picked guitar and solid drum work. The screamed male vocals work well. There are some solid riff thrown into the mix. ‘Uppror’ has a wall of sound quality to it. Driving rhythms and intense vocals, it has a bit of a Euro metal feel. ‘Undergång’ has some interesting sounds, including battle effects. It builds well in intensity in the style of a power ballad.
‘Deus’ is a shorter track with a medieval style to it and incorporates spoken word lyrics. It is quite atmospheric. Closer ‘Requiem’ has some nice picked guitar leading to Liv’s plaintiff vocals. This leads into a full on heavy section. I liked the contrast between the earthy male vocals and Liv’s ethereal falsetto, she has got quite a range on her. The acoustic instruments are more prominent in this song, in particular there is some nice violin playing. ‘Requiem’ is by far the best track on this album.
To sum up, I have to give ‘Fredlös’ a mixed review. While there are some good tracks on the album there are also tracks that I can only describe as safe, in that they are uninspiring and formulaic. I did not feel that there was much that was new and there was a sparsity of hooks. Having said that though, ‘Requiem’ is a very good track: but does it salvage the album? I’m undecided…
- ‘Fredlös’is released on Friday (10 February). You can get your copy HERE.
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