Unleashed: Carrying On A Fiery Legacy
Fire Upon Your Lands, the brilliant new album from Swedish death metal legends UNLEASHED sees the band strongly continue the vast story of the Odalheim world that they have created, and has powered this, and their last five albums, with their unrelenting death metal acting as a soundtrack to the latest chapter. We spoke with vocalist/bassist Jonny Hedlund to get the inside story of the new album and the inspiring longevity of UNLEASHED.
We begin with Jonny telling of the origins that the story that Fire Upon Your Lands is a thrilling continuation of, and how it takes form. “It’s taken from a book that me and a friend were working and the book was called The World of Odalheim. We never got to finish the book but I put the chapters into songs, and we just kept on going. This is the sixth album with the same storyline.”
Jonny then explains how Fire Upon Your Lands expands the story of Odalheim and the basis for this new album. “The entire thing is about the Mega Warriors struggle against their main enemy, White Christ, The end of the previous album is where the Mega Warriors hunt for the armies of White Christ ended on the side of Mount Sinai, which is far away from the north and that is where this album springs off.”
Jonny then explains how the story can go on and on, and acts as an endless pool of inspiration. “I thought it was going to be too big of a challenge, but as I went along, the guys in the band said, ‘it fucking works, man, so let’s keep on doing it’.”
Although UNLEASHED are a death metal band to their core and always will be, there is an eclectic nature to their heaviness that every fan of metal can enjoy as Jonny explains this appeal.“I’ve always said that we are a death metal band, and we always have to keep to the roots, because that’s what UNLEASHED is about. But, there’s enough elements in there from the old heavy metal structures in the songs that actually, even people who don’t normally like death metal would start enjoying this”.
Fire Upon Your Lands is the fifteenth UNLEASHED album in thirty seven years and Jonny revels in telling of the prolific nature of the band and their outlook. “When we started this band in 1989, we all sat down together and said, ‘well, we have no idea if this is going to last for thirty five years or five years’, but we said, ‘what we’re going to do from now on is that we’re going to play death metal’. We’re going to be a death metal band, and we’re going to be a live act. Now, if anybody wants to play a different style of music, they’re welcome to do so, but not in UNLEASHED. That was a pretty heavy thing that we really spoke about.”
Jonny then expands by talking of his ongoing love for UNLEASHED and the band’s music going forward. “I still have a ton of ideas. I don’t even know where it’s gonna end. We just keep moving. It’s good fun, man, and above all, it’s amazing to be able to go out and play shows and festivals. You still keep seeing all these fantastic people, so I don’t see it ending anytime soon”.
Jonny then tells of new UNLEASHED music and how this prolific nature will continue after this album is out. “I work on new music constantly but probably less these months because of the new album and promotion but after that, there’s more time to create new stuff. I write down ideas all the time.”
Talk then talks to UNLEASHED playing live and the difficulty of choosing a setlist when the band has so much material to choose from, as Jonny explains. “That’s probably one of the toughest challenges that there is, because this is number fifteen. Sometimes we play festivals where you don’t even have fifteen songs! if you have an hour, you have to plan it carefully. It’s actually a battle, but you have to make it happen sometimes you have to play some of the songs over and over again. I am probably the one in the band that that wants to swap songs a little more often and take out some old songs and put in some new songs, but then the other guys really want to play very old stuff, so we make a vote.”
When asked about the possibility of UNLESHED returning to the UK for live dates, Jonny enthusiastically declared. “I would go tomorrow! I would love to see that rather sooner rather than later, for sure.”
With UNLEASHED a legendary force not only in Swedish death metal, but death metal as a whole, Jonny tells of his pride at the bands place in metal and how they are still releasing vital music today as they have done with Fire Upon Your Lands. “We’ve been doing this for quite some time, and you get what you deserve. Whatever we’ve done in the past and whatever we’re going to do in the future, we probably get what we deserve, and I think we’re in a good spot, and I think we’re doing the right thing, and we really enjoy ourselves doing it, so we’ll just keep on working.”
Fire Upon Your Lands is out now via Napalm Records. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS122 here:
For more information on UNLEASHED like their official page on Facebook.